Mark Lutmer was a diehard Minnesota Golden Gophers fan for decades. His maroon Gopher coat with the gold “M” logo stamped on the top left side was worn religiously, along with his hat and blankets appearing at almost every Minnesota football game he attended. 

He always hoped his son, Zach, would play football for his favorite team, as did Zach But Minnesota never looked Zach’s way until Iowa offered him first, and the Rock Rapids native wasted no time committing to the home-state team that believed in him first.

“He’s playing at a really high level,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said of Zach. “As a coaching staff, we’re not surprised because we thought he was really good when we recruited him, probably under recruited, and then certainly we’ve gotten to watch him on a daily basis.”

And since then, the Lutmers have proudly embraced its Hawkeye fandom. 

“I got rid of all my Gophers equipment,” Mark said. “I don’t use it. I got rid of it all.”

Sports were a staple in the Lutmer household Mark, a Minnesota native, played football, basketball, and baseball and continued his basketball career at Worthington Community College in Worthington, Minnesota. 

Zach’s mother, Dana, played basketball and ran track in high school, and his older sister, Mackenzie, did the same. Zach’s older brother and Mackenzie’s twin, Nic, played football, basketball, and ran track in high school and went on to play basketball at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. 

Zach was ushered into sports as early as one could be. As a baby, he tagged along with his father – an assistant football coach at Central Lyon High School – to basketball and football practices and watched sports with him, whether that was scouting opponents or tuning into Minnesota Vikings games on the couch. 

As an elementary school kid, Zach often competed against his older brother. An eight-year age gap between the two, Nic and his friends waddled on their knees while Zach was on his feet and tackled him without pads on. Sometimes his brother’s hits were too hard, and Zach would cry in frustration. 

But one thing he never did was quit.

“It’s like he flipped a switch. ‘You’re going to do that to me, I’m going to do this to you,’” Dana said. “He got right back up and got after it.”

Outside of backyard football games, Nic acted as a trainer to Zach. He helped Zach work on his baseball fielding skills by hitting ground balls to him, improve his basketball shooting form by constantly putting him at the free-throw line, and develop his football catching ability by playing catch.

Whenever Zach messed up, Nic forced him to run around the family’s 2,500 square-foot home in under a minute as punishment. 

“He was probably the harshest coach that I had, but the best coach that I had, and I needed that when I was really young,” Zach said. “He would tell me that I wasn’t good, which helped me get better every single day and keep wanting it.”

That meticulous practice regimen helped Zach dominate against his peers. Mark remembered a time when Zach was playing baseball and fielded a ground ball. Rather than toss it to first base, he would simply just run to the bag. 

When Zach played outfield, the same thing happened. Dana recalled a time where her son ran across the outfield to catch a fly ball instead of letting his teammate make the catch. 

Zach recalled “getting jiggy with it” as a running back in youth flag football and catching full-court passes from his grade school teammates for game-winners in youth basketball. 

“That just taught me the competitive edge of everything, just having fun out there, enjoying everything and enjoying your teammates,” Zach said.

Self-motivated

Throughout his childhood,  Zach closely studied his family members. 

When Mark would study game film of the team he was coaching or his next opponent, Zach watched and analyzed with him. When their beloved Vikings played, Zach would always watch and question the schemes the players were running. After Nic lost one of his college basketball games, middle school-aged Zach watched his brother get some shots up the next morning. 

Basketball was Zach’s first love, and watching his older brother play in college inspired him to be a college basketball player in his own right. He rotated between football, basketball, track, and baseball, but basketball was his best sport, as he averaged 16 points, seven rebounds, and five assists as a freshman on the Central Lyon High School varsity team. 

In a game against Okoboji that year, he scored 39 points. With the Lions down two points with five seconds left. Zach caught the ball, drove to the paint from the right elbow, saw the help defender biting, and kicked it to the corner to his open teammate, who missed the shot. Had Zach taken the shot and made it, he would have broken the school’s single-game scoring record. 

Football was a close second. After playing several positions during his flag football years and through the two seasons of tackle football before high school, Zach began his high school career out as the junior varsity starting quarterback. By his sophomore year, Zach earned the varsity starting role and also played defensive back. 

Zach’s stellar first season of high school football earned him Class 2A Player of the Year honors. He logged 1,194 yards, eight touchdowns as a passer, 1,609 yards and 23 touchdowns on the ground, while also collecting four interceptions. 

Central Lyon would advance to the 2020 Class 2A Championship Game, where they lost, 28-14, to Waukon. 

Playing varsity basketball during his freshman season helped lay the foundation for Zach’s football success.  

“It really taught me the competitive side of things, getting the game speed down,” Zach said. “Obviously, basketball is different from football, but just the level of athletes that I’m going to play. And seeing that helped.”

Mark, however, attributed Zach’s success to the work he put in during the COVID-19 pandemic. The world shut down towards the end of Zach’s freshman year, which kept him at home and away from sports. While he had a hard time keeping weight on and couldn’t work out at school, he composed a workout plan and used the 4,000-yard combined space between his backyard and his neighboring grandma’s backyard to his advantage.

Zach would strap a pulling sled to his waist using a belt and run with it to improve his quickness. He’d work on his quarterback drop-steps with Mark as his receiver, even if it was hot and humid or raining outside. A day off wasn’t an option. 

“I always told him, there’s three things that are going to happen every day, and I still tell him to this day — either you’re going to stay the same, get better, or you’re going to get worse.,” Mark said. “You make that choice.

“He doesn’t like to sit around. He wants to get better.”

While Dana and Mark were traveling to one of Zach’s basketball games during his sophomore campaign, they received a phone call that stuck far into their hearts – doctors told Dana she had cancer. 

Despite the tough news, they still attended the game. At halftime, the phone rang again. This time, the call was from Mark’s sister – something she never did during games. She revealed to Mark that their father was diagnosed with cancer. 

Two family members, two cancer diagnoses, same day. 

Dana and Mark made the conscious decision to not tell Zach, but eventually did after a few days. When Zach was told, the first thing he asked was what stage his mom’s cancer was in — Stage IV. 

“We thought he needed to know. And I think he realized, don’t take things for granted,” Dana said. “Life is short. Don’t take things for granted.”

Everything changed for Zach during his junior year. His offensive totals for his junior football season took a dip, though he stood out on defense with 46.5 tackles, 36 solo tackles, three tackles for loss, and four interceptions for 100 return yards and a touchdown. 

At this point, Zach realized football was his path over basketball, as colleges began scouting him as a defensive back. 

During a basketball practice that year, a South Dakota scout went to Rock Rapids and paid Zach a visit. After that practice, Zach received his first college football offer. Soon, rival South Dakota State came calling. 

“I just want a Division I offer from wherever it be,” Zach said. “I felt like once I got that first offer, a few more would roll in. And that’s pretty much what happened.”

He held out on those offers with the hope that bigger Division I schools would offer, specifically Minnesota, but it was hard for the three-star prospect to get noticed in the small northwest Iowa town — until LeVar Woods came into the picture. 

Woods, Iowa’s special teams coordinator and an Inwood native, listened to his brother rave about Zach. Woods went back to his hometown and liked what he saw, and eventually brought the rest of the Hawkeyes’ staff with him. On May 12, 2022, Iowa assistant head coach Seth Wallace called Zach and gave him a full-ride offer. He committed the next day. 

Once the Iowa offer came,  Minnesota began to subtly recruit him. But by that point, he was fully committed to the Hawkeyes. 

“The defensive system that has been in place for 20 some years, and then just seeing the loyalty that teammates have for one another, there’s not many guys that enter the (transfer) portal.” Zach said. “So seeing that definitely helped and made me want to come here.”

He wrapped up his high school football career as a three-time first-team All-State and three-time first-team All-District honoree and one “Elite All-State” nomination along with school records of 4,417 rushing yards, 3,567 passing yards, and 99 total touchdowns. 

Zach would also pass Nic as Central Lyon’s all-time leading scorer with 1,346 career points and lead the basketball team to the 2022 state title. 

“Passing [Nic] my junior year was super awesome because he helped me ever since I was really young,” Zach said. “He was super happy for me.”

A star is born

Zach’s first season with Iowa was in 2023, where he redshirted and sat behind veterans Quinn Schulte, Sebastian Castro, and Cooper DeJean. Zach emulated their strong work ethic, tagging alongside them in drills and watching film to pick up certain tactics. 

Zach appeared in 13 games at cornerback in 2024, and tallied 14 total tackles, 11 solo tackles, and one interception — his first career pick being one of the lone bright spots in a disappointing 20-17 November loss to UCLA. 

“That was my first time touching the ball since high school,” he said.

After an offseason that saw nearly half of the Iowa defense transition to the NFL, Lutmer got his opportunity and ran with it. Through 10 games this season, he’s compiled 57 total tackles, 34 solo tackles, four passes defended, one sack, and two interceptions returned for 72 yards and a touchdown playing the “cash” position — a position that combines the duties of a defensive back and a linebacker. 

“Anytime I get a chance to go out there and compete on the field, I’m super blessed,” Lutmer said. “And obviously, the coaches have a lot of trust in me to play those positions, so I’d never want to let them down. Never want to let my teammates down.”

Zach’s ultimate goal is to be another local Iowa product that makes it to the NFL, and his work ethic and production this season is a step in the right direction. Whether it happens or not, Mark and Dana will be proud of their son, as a player and as a person.

“We’re proud of him either way,” Dana said. “He’s just a good kid that every mom dreams of having.”