Of all of Iowa’s stupid games in this stupid season, this was by far the stupidest. This game was beaten with stupid sticks before being thrown out of a stupid airplane stupidly, hitting every branch of a stupid tree on the way down to the ground before landing onto the decrepit shack where Nebraska houses its decaying dreams of football relevancy and reducing it to rubble. Watching this game was like eating rotten gruel served up by a scurvy-ridden pirate until the walking embodiment of your sexual fantasies struts in to hand you your favorite meal. And even better, there was a stretch limo waiting outside to drive us straight to Indianapolis after it was all done.
I know the Penn State game will go down as the zenith of the season for some of you, what with the Kinnick lights and us all getting high on our own supply of hype. Barring some miraculous showing by Iowa in the Big Ten Championship, which they are absolutely fucking playing in, this is the game I will most remember from this wonderful, maddening, perplexing, but unforgettable season of Iowa football. This game had everything to love and hate about our 2021 Hawkeye squad: Our staid, stoic defense, spectacular special teams, and an offense that leaves a metric ton to be desired, all packaged together in an exquisite win against the most loathsome squad of has-beens in the Big Ten.
It started out, as it had to, unpleasantly. Nebraska came out spitting fire thanks to a pretty solid game plan by Coach Frigid. It featured a lot of option runs to the outside, which caught the defense out of position and kept Nebraska annoyingly ahead of the sticks. But the real turd in the piss bowl was that all of this running set up very easy chunk passes for Nebraska’s brand-new QB, Logan Smothers. At one point on the drive, Smothers found Samori Toure, Nebraska’s best wide receiver, all alone down the sideline for 28 yards, and the only reason it wasn’t a touchdown was because Toure did Iowa the service of walking himself out of bounds on the faulty assumption an Iowa defender was close enough to push him out anyway. It didn’t matter, with Smothers running the ball in for a touchdown a couple of plays later.
Iowa’s offense has correctly gotten more grief than Charlie Brown this season, but despite the inconsistencies, accounting for competition, this was the offense’s best game of the season, more akin to mediocre than straight-up awful. The running game being downright excellent was the main reason for this, but on the first drive, it was timely passes that moved the ball. The best one came on third-and-one from their own 34, with Brian going against short-yardage tendency and dialing up a play-action pass. Nebraska read stretch run and let Sam LaPorta loose in the secondary like a baby deer being set back into the wild. Alex Padilla had no problem finding him wide-open down the sideline for 30 yards, getting Iowa three first downs for the price of one. What a Black Friday deal!
Despite a godly effort from Tyler Goodson on a draw play on third-and-goal from the 13-yard line, Iowa found themselves at a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line. It brought me great joy to watch Ferentz trot his offense out there instead of the field goal unit. My joy increased exponentially when Brian called another play-action pass. The play itself was kind of jilted, with Padilla awkwardly rolling out, but despite this, he was able to flick the ball out to a sort-of open LaPorta, who hauled the ball in with one of his mighty paws, pulling it into his chest and cradling it with two hands on the way to the ground. Just after landing, the ball seemed to teleport to LaPorta’s feet. It was ruled a touchdown, but despite seeing no video evidence that LaPorta, not the defender, caused the ball to arrive at his feet, the touchdown catch was overruled upon review.
One of the reasons why going for it on fourth-and-goal from the one is so freaking cool is that we get to see opposing teams desperately try to escape the shadow of their own goal post against Iowa’s defense if the offense doesn't score on that fourth down play. Nebraska, uh, did not escape from the shadow of their own goal post, and Iowa got the ball right back at the Nebraska 48. Iowa managed a nice Goodson run and nothing else on the drive, punting the ball from the Nebraska 39 into the end zone for all of 19 yards of field position. Fortunately, Nebraska didn't do anything this time, either, giving the ball back to Iowa at their own 40-yard line. A couple of running plays and a penalty on Nebraska for a dude shoving Padilla’s head got the ball to the Nebraska 33 and Caleb Shudek “Sho’ Decked” the 51-yard field goal try through the uprights to get Iowa on the board.
Nebraska responded with their same aggravating shtick, almost exclusively keeping the ball on the ground, using lots of option looks and zone reads to pick up moderate chunks of yards play after play. Iowa’s defense looked like they were drunk and on roller skates, unsure of who had the ball and slow to tackle when they were. Nebraska punched the ball into the end zone on a Yant leap for a depressing 14-3 Nebraska lead. Iowa used a mix of runs, passes, and Nebraska dumbness to tack on a 48-yard field goal on the next drive to limit the damage to 14-6, which made it technically a one-score game.
With the ball to start the second half, Kirk decided that Iowa’s offensive line was playing well enough that Spencer Petras gave Iowa the best chance to win the game. Kirk was right. Maybe? At this point, this is one of the least exciting football “debates” I can recall. It is like arguing over which leisure suit to wear. You are going to look like a dork no matter which one you put on. But Padilla did look rough in the first half, throwing a bunch of almost picks, appearing more confused and flustered than he has this season. Petras had a couple of almost interceptions of his own, but he did better than Padilla in this game, albeit only slightly.
But on the opening drive, Spencer Petras’ only meaningful contribution was to hit Charlie Jones on a shallow cross on 3rd-and-9, which worked because Nebraska bungled the open-field tackle and Jones was able to find the first down marker. Otherwise all of the damage, both good and bad, was done on the ground. The best play was a fullback dive counter, with the offensive line overloading the left side only to give the ball to Pottebaum running to his right, who got one block and rumbled, stumbled, and bumbled loose down the right side of Nebraska’s defense for 26 yards. It was a beautiful variation on Iowa’s usual suspect short-yardage plays.
But the Fates were not ready for Iowa to seize control of this game yet. On 2nd-and-8 from the Nebraska 14, Goodson’s number was called. He streaked into the secondary like Hermes delivering bad news, looking for an outlet to the end zone. Instead he careened into the hulking mass of the offense’s other great Tyler, Tyler Linderbaum, whose ferocious tendency to block downfield cruelly worked against Iowa here. The ball did not survive the collision and Nebraska fell on the gift, a freak play that ended what sure looked like a statement drive for Iowa.
Nebraska had 94 yards to go to the endzone, and had no problem getting there. At this point all of the eye-candy Nebraska was showing gave the Iowa defense brain-diabetes. They spent this entire drive not knowing which way was up, giving up 27- and 40-yard completion en route to another Logan Smothers touchdown run. It was honestly the most flummoxed I have seen the defense look in a couple of seasons.
At this stage in the game, with Iowa down 15 points and time waning in the third quarter, things looked bleak. The offense had been functional, but the red zone was still the stuff of nightmares for them. The defense had been twisted into knots over-and-over by all of Nebraska’s trickery. Even Petras hitting Luke Lachey for 27 yards and lobbing a decapitated duck to Nico Ragaini for 24 yards to move the ball into field goal range, which Shudek coolly hit, did little to assuage these concerns. With the third quarter expired, math suggested that Iowa probably wasn’t getting the ball for four field goal tries to erase the 12-point lead, even if they could keep Nebraska from adding to their total.
As it turns out, things do look darkest before the dawn. Iowa was just biding their time, waiting for the opportunity to hit Nebraska’s “self-destruct” button. After a three-and-out by the Huskers, Iowa smashed that button with a hammer. Iowa sent four dudes after the punt. Nebraska had three blockers in the wall formation every team seems to use in punt protection. Taking the concept of walls too literally, they left Henry Marchese completely unblocked on the edge, whose pitch perfect dive in front of the punter deflected the ball high up in the air to the heavens. Zeus gave the ball a kiss, officially lifting the ban on divine interference for this game, and the angelic blessing floated down into the waiting arms of Kyler Fisher, who jogged into the end zone for a game-changing touchdown.
At this point, Nebraska was as doomed as Sean Penn in “Dead Man Walking.” They ambled on, going through the motions, but their fate was sealed, the rest of the game just a matter of how the loss would play out. Nebraska moved the ball on the next possession, playing at a lead-lengthening score before the ball popped loose at midfield on a wonky exchange by Smothers, with Logan Lee falling on the ball to recover the fumble.
Iowa’s offense actually went backwards on the ensuing drive, but Tory Taylor precision-punted the ball to the Nebraska 7-yard line, where it was fair-caught by former-Woverine/Hawkeye/Hot Commodity Oliver Martin. After losing yards on a first down pass, Nebraska went even further in reverse on the next play, a pass attempt. Two Hawkeyes smothered Smothers in the end zone, with Smothers intentionally grounding the ball to avoid a safety…for a safety.
Charlie Jones took the free kick to the Iowa 38. A big pass to LaPorta and an absolute baller of a sideline catch by Jones set up another kick by “Cool-Leg” Caleb, who being a stone-cold badass made his fourth field goal in as many tries. In what felt like 30 seconds, Iowa was suddenly in a 21-21 tie.
After another three-and-out by Nebraska, Iowa finally took their rightful lead. A 7-yard run by Goodson set up a much nicer run on second-and-three, with the left side of the offensive line eviscerating Nebraska’s right flank, and Goodson burrowing through their defense untouched until he made it 55 yards down the field to the Nebraska 14-yard line. Gavin Williams got the ball to the 2-yard line and Spencer Petras did the rest, getting shoved into the end zone on a quarterback sneak, and all was right with the world.
Nebraska made one final pretend attempt at scoring a game-tying touchdown, but Smothers got his wires all-the-way crossed and threw the ball to nobody in particular. Jermari Harris leapt under the ball for the game-ending interception. All that was left was a QB sneak, two kneel-downs, and a whole lot of self-loathing by our friends to the west.
We now sit several years removed from Nebraska “evaluating where Iowa was as a program.” Whatever snark Nebraska fans may give you about their search for greatness and Iowa’s alleged complacency, let’s evaluate where Nebraska is as a program: Nebraska is a bad team that has a not gone bowling in five years, a feat which has required five years of losing records. They are retaining their all-time losing-est coach for fear they will fall even further into ineptitude with a coaching change. The good ol’ days are remembered by a dwindling group of aging fans whose success has poisoned them from enjoying even the relatively good success that Bo Pelini brought them.
But enough about those losers in Lincoln. Thanks to a huge win by the Gophers on Saturday, our Hawks just won the Big Ten West outright. (None of that shared bullshit.) This is both awesome and hilarious, as this Iowa squad might well be the worst offense to ever grace the Big Ten Championship Game. (Imagine the clutched pearls if Iowa wins next week!) Michigan is legit, like Iowa but with a competent offense, but no matter what happens next week, I got way more than I expected from this season. We are rolling with house money now, baby. Let's put in all on the black-and-gold and let it ride.
Random Thoughts
* Iowa is playing in the Big Ten title game, you hosers.
* This was the offensive line's best game of the year. Not elite overall or anything, but the pass protection was decent and they were mauling the Huskers in the running game. (Take away some of the dopey reverses and those numbers get even better.) Iowa is likely to lose Linderbaum, but if Kyler Schlott sticks around (he may have a COVID year to use) they might gel into a better unit overall next year.
* Caleb Shudek.
* Hopefully a terror-monster appears next year on the defensive line. The coverage sacks were nice, but if there are some departures in the back-seven, more pressure will be a must.
* The quarterback situation, eh? I have no idea who starts on Saturday. I imagine both Padilla and Petras are looking around like “I can’t beat out that guy?” One of them is heading out, right?
* P.J. Fleck, you beautiful, sentient sales strategy. Thank you!
