I was in a blissful daze and emotionally spent. If you were there (and there being last Saturday’s Kinnick inferno), you know exactly what I mean. An adopted Washingtonian, I returned to my native Iowa for the Hawkeyes-Nittany Lions headliner. It had been nine long years since I last stepped inside Kinnick. It almost felt like Kinnick was chastising me (Matt, you think Husky Stadium can compare to this? Oh, really?). I needed a Kinnick reminder.
Was this the loudest Kinnick home game I’ve been to? I thought the crowd for the 2004 B1G clincher against Bucky was more ravenous. You could feel that crowd’s hunger—for a Badger beatdown, Big Ten title, and the inevitable field storming. There was joy (I mean, we did win the B1G title) but, more than that, the crowd’s ferocity had been seared into my memory bank.
But if we are talking sustained, ear-splitting chaos, last Saturday took the unofficial Kinnick belt. Kinnick heaved in the best way imaginable. If you were at the game, you saw, heard, and felt Kinnick frothing (case in point: the avalanche of false start penalties, the wild gesticulations between PSU’s center and back-up QB, the chorus of boos following another PSU injury after a big Iowa play).
But almost as notable as Kinnick going Defcon 1, the Iowa crowd kept the faith, even when the Hawkeyes looked overmatched. In the first quarter, Petras was doing his own junior senior dance in the pocket (which was no bueno). As the Iowa offense scuffled, Sean Clifford masterfully mixed screen passes and scrambles to keep the Hawkeye defense off-balance. While 17-3 wasn't quite “check, please” time, the Kinnick crowd could have checked out (or, as the kids say, gotten into their feelings). At the very least, I expected Kinnick grumbles—those murmurings that say “We don’t really belong here, do we”—to infiltrate Kinnick. And if we are being completely honest, I had a flashback to the PSU rout in 2012, my last game at Kinnick.
But, thankfully, the Kinnick crowd had more faith than me because there was absolutely none of that nervous, deflating energy—the “oh fuck, here we go again” mood suck. I am not sure if that comes with a 12-game winning streak or the Hawkeyes’ recent dominance against top-five opponents at Kinnick or a quiet confidence that Kirk and the boys will bennnnd but not quite break? But color me impressed— the Kinnick crowd didn’t bend, let alone surrender cobra pose, when PSU staked out a 17-3 lead. And, of course, once the Hawkeyes steadied themselves (and Clifford exited stage right), the Kinnick crowd breathed fire into our Hawkeyes. As the Hawkeye defense and crowd put PSU’s backup QB into a closet, I almost felt a tinge of sympathy for him. “This guy doesn’t have it. If the ghost of Phil Parker doesn't finish him, a thunderous Kinnick will,” I thought. Even with Iowa clinging to a three-point lead, the last couple PSU possessions felt like a fait accompli. Kinnick had devoured yet another highly ranked foe.
But while I was confident the Hawkeye defense, and Kinnick, would preserve the victory (the less said about the Hawkeyes’ late game offense, the better), the game drained me...in the best way possible. After hyperventilating for the better part of three hours (while almost 70,000 did the same), I shuffled up Melrose in a blissful daze. It was that post coitus feeling, black and gold endorphins fluttering inside. My fellow Kinnick crazies and I needed a cigarette, preferably a pack. The game was that intense, a never-ending crescendo of noise that would peak and, then somehow, peak again.
So, thank you, Kinnick for the refresher course. Living in the Pacific Northwest (where college football is a cute little side hobby), I needed to hear your roar and feel your wrath. As last Saturday once again proved, our Melrose madhouse produces magic.
