PREVIOUSLY ON THIS EDITION OF 20 FOR 20:
Part 1: Nos. 20-16
Part 2: Nos. 15-11
We finished yesterday's set of games with Iowa's 2002 win over unranked Purdue. That's the last unranked team left in this edition of 20 For 20. The final ten best games of the Kirk Ferentz era all were ranked in the top twelve nationally, and the fact that Iowa has eleven wins over teams in the top twelve during this stretch (2003 Michigan was lower on the list) says a lot for how Kirk Ferentz has stayed in the good graces of some fans. Sure, Iowa blows gimmie games with a frustrating frequency, but you rarely have to wait long for a rabbit to come out of a hat.
10. Iowa 21, No. 5 Penn State 10
September 26, 2009
Echoes are not exclusive to sounds. They can be caused by emotions, bitter feelings that revisit you, that remind you, that inspire you...
I have never in my life been more ready for an Iowa football game than I was after that Brent Musberger introduction played through the speakers of a Davenport bar in late September 2009. We were ten months removed from Daniel Murray's kick, and the storyline headed into that week was that Penn State wanted its revenge.
The thing that Musberger missed, that went almost unmentioned in the run-up to that pivotal 2009 contest, was this: Iowa hadn't lost since Murray's kick went through the uprights. The 2008 win had set off a four-game streak to end the season, with that 2008 team probably the most underrated of Ferentz's tenure. Iowa had followed that up with four more wins to start the 2009 season, and Ferentz was one win away from doing something he had never done at Iowa before: Posting an undefeated September.
The start wasn't ideal, with Iowa quickly giving the opening kick back to Penn State and immediately conceding a long touchdown. The Nittany Lions scored another field goal late in the first quarter. But that 2009 defense was probably the best of the Ferentz era, and Paterno's offense would not score another point the rest of the night.
Iowa, of course, got to 21 points in the most imaginative way possible: A safety, two field goals, a blocked punt returned for a touchdown -- say it with me: "Blocked! Scooped up! This is gonna be a Hawkeye touchdown! This is Clayborn, the big defensive end!" -- with a missed two-point conversion, and another touchdown with an extra point. We once beat these guys 6-4; getting 21 with a safety and a blocked punt is easy compared to that.
Clayborn's punt block is the obvious moment in this game, the first time that Penn State truly cracked. Once it had happened, the game opened up. The Nittany Lions could not figure out Iowa's defense, and Adam Robinson just low-center-of-gravity'd his way through tacklers for the rest of the fourth quarter. It was a night where Iowa was finally supposed to get its comeuppance. It ended up being a worthy sequel to the previous November's instant classic.
9. No. 17 Iowa 30, No. 9 Wisconsin 7
November 20, 2004
The most surreal season from my seven in Iowa City ended in the most surreal football Saturday I've ever been a part of.
The 2004 Iowa Hawkeyes didn't much look like a championship football team, at least not in September. They had been throttled by Arizona State in the season's third game, and suffocated by Michigan the following week. When Iowa kicked off against Ohio State on October 16, the Hawks were unranked. The throttling of the Buckeyes got Iowa back into the polls, but three subsequent two-point wins over Penn State, Purdue and Minnesota had not exactly instilled confidence. Iowa had literally no halfbacks left on the roster, but Iowa had Drew Tate, and that's all that really seemed to matter.
While Iowa was squeaking past the conference's also-rans, Michigan and Wisconsin reigned supreme. The Wolverines and Badgers weren't scheduled to play that season, so like Ohio State and Iowa in 2002, they seemed inevitably set to share the Big Ten crown. The Badgers, led by running back Anthony Davis running behind tackle Joe Thomas on basically every play and a defense full of eventual pros, won their first nine games and rose to No. 4 in the rankings before a November 13 game against a typically-wacky John L. Smith Michigan State outfit. Meanwhile, Michigan had recovered from an early loss to Notre Dame and run the table through the Big Ten season, moving to No. 9 in the polls that same week.
And then John L. did what John L. frequently did in East Lansing: He cut the brakes, yelled "WILD CARD" and dove out of the back of Wisconsin's van. Sparty 49 - Wisconsin 14 sent reverberations through the league with one week to go. All Michigan would have to do was beat one of the worst Ohio State teams in a generation and the conference title was theirs outright. Meanwhile, due to a quirk in the schedule, Wisconsin would close its season against Iowa (the teams had also finished the 2003 season against each other, but otherwise hadn't played each other in the final Big Ten game of the year since 1951). Winner would get a respectable second in the conference, as improbable as that seemed for Iowa two months earlier.
And so Michigan and Ohio State kicked off right around the same time that traditional Hawkeye-Badger tailgating moved into DEFCON 3 status on Melrose Avenue. Michigan was up early, and most people stopped paying attention, up to the moment where Ted Ginn took a punt back for a score in the third quarter. Suddenly, it no longer looked like Iowa and Wisconsin were playing for second. When Santonio Holmes caught another touchdown eight minutes later to give OSU a 20-point lead, the murmurs in the parking lots and on the sidewalks turned to roars. This friendly game between mostly-friendly rivals had just morphed into a winner-take-half contest for the Big Ten title, just as the fans were shuffling into a surprisingly-balmy Kinnick Stadium for Senior Day.
I have been in that stadium dozens of times. I have never felt anything quite like that afternoon. Iowa was not losing that game. Iowa was not losing that game the first time it turned the ball over, early in the first quarter. Iowa was not losing that game the second time it turned the ball over, also early in the first quarter. And Iowa was definitely not losing that game when Wisconsin quarterback John Stocco almost immediately began repeatedly punching himself in the face. Drew Tate was doing Drew Tate things, Iowa's defense shut down the Badger rushing attack, and the result was elementary. Celebrations began in earnest before the fourth quarter even started.
Iowa's 2004 Big Ten Championship, the last one the program has won, might be the most improbable Big Ten title in the last twenty years, and the game that won them that title was one of the most improbable outcomes of the same time period.
8. Iowa 27, No. 12 Northwestern 17
November 11, 2000
As we all know, Iowa went 1-10 in Kirk Ferentz's first season. What many don't know is that it got much, much worse. Iowa had lost its last eight games in 1999, and started 0-5 in 2000 with an embarrassing loss to Western Michigan, an uncompetitive rollover against Nebraska in Lincoln, and a twelve-point defeat at an equally-bad Indiana to cap a winless September. All of this happened while Bob Stoops, the guy everyone had expected to get the Iowa job, was off to an undefeated start in his second season at Oklahoma. There have been times where Ferentz's job was insecure, but never was it as precipitous as it was in early October 2000. To all observers, this thing just wasn't going to work.
And then Iowa somehow beat what was thought to be a pretty good Michigan State team (turns out they weren't, but we stormed the field anyway). Gigantic losses to Illinois and Ohio State followed, but a near-miss against Wisconsin led to a second conference win, this time over Penn State. It wasn't much, but it was a glimmer of hope.
Even with that, and even though they're just Northwestern, with Ferentz at 3-18, the 'Cats looked like a mountain far too high to scale. Northwestern was squarely in the conference title hunt on a cold November afternoon in Iowa City, with quarterback Zak Kustok and running back Damien Anderson leading them toward a potential Rose Bowl trip. All Northwestern had to do to win a Big Ten championship was dispatch of lowly Iowa and take care of Illinois the following week.
Of all the Ferentz upsets, this one is almost certainly the most improbable. He was going through a quarterback controversy, having benched Jon "the Future" Beutjer in favor of Kyle McCann. Iowa had Ladell Betts and Kevin Kasper, holdovers from the Fry regime that had become indispensable stars, but the offense was still built around underclassmen on the offensive line. And even if Iowa's offense could put points on the board, the defense had to somehow handle Northwestern's spread attack with one legitimate cornerback. Not only was Iowa young and way, way under .500, but it was a bad matchup to boot.
The game played out as a template for an upset: Iowa got ahead early through a field goal by freshman Nate Keading. Northwestern's running game never got started, as Iowa managed to get into the backfield all day. Iowa got a late first-half touchdown on a great play by Kahlil Hill, and Iowa had both the lead and the momentum headed into halftime.
From there, it was just a question of belief, and faith was rewarded with a Kevin Kasper 42-yard touchdown that made it 20-3 and sent the crowd into a frenzy not seen since 1997. The coup de grace, a McCann sneak into the end zone with seven minutes left, felt like the quarterback bursting through a dam. Kirk shook Norm Parker's hand, neither of them looking like they knew what had just happened. Iowa had crushed Northwestern's Rose Bowl dream and established that, eventually, this whole thing was going to be OK.
7. No. 13 Iowa 34, No. 8 Michigan 9
October 26, 2002
If the 2000 Northwestern game was the kernel of faith, 2002 Michigan was the payoff.
Before this game, Ferentz's Iowa program didn't yet have proof of concept. Sure, there had been the aforementioned Northwestern game, a bowl win in 2001, and a pretty good start to the 2002 season. But it felt like a Top 15 ranked Iowa was flying a bit too close to the sun, and if history was any guide, its wings were going to melt in the Big House. Before October 26, 2002, Iowa had not won a game at Michigan since 1981. The Hawkeyes' 1997 loss in Ann Arbor had been so traumatic that it effectively ended the Hayden Fry regime; Iowa went 6-11 after that near-miss, and Fry won just a single road game over the next two years. The lesson: A bad showing in Ann Arbor can derail an entire season.
This Michigan team looked slightly vulnerable, having lost to Notre Dame in September and eked past Penn State and Purdue in the two weeks prior to its tangle with Iowa. Still, it was loaded, with John Navarre under center, All-American Bennie Joppru at tight end, Braylon Edwards and Jason Avant at receiver, and a fearsome defense.
Here's who Michigan didn't have: Jermelle Lewis. The halfback out of Connecticut was the biggest recruiting win of Ferentz's early tenure and, when healthy, arguably the best running back to ever perform in Ferentz's zone system. And Lewis was healthy on October 26, 2002. Oh, was he healthy.
The game was hardly over at halftime, with Iowa leading 10-6 and Michigan getting a late score to get there. Big Blue got a field goal and a quick stop to start the third quarter, but the game finally broke open when Bob Sanders forced Markus Curry to fumble on the ensuing punt. Brad Banks hit C.J. Jones for a score, and then Jermelle Lewis went to work. Lewis scored his only touchdown on a five-yard run up the gut in the following series, capping a drive where he eviscerated the Michigan defense. He finished the day with 141 yards from scrimmage, most in the second half, as Iowa opened up a 25-point lead.
Iowa entered the day with a bunch of questions. The Hawkeyes hadn't been able to hold a lead, didn't have a definitive go-to star, and hadn't faced a top-notch opponent. By the end of the day, Iowa was the prohibitive favorite to go to the Rose Bowl, with Banks a potential Heisman Trophy candidate, Lewis a workhorse halfback, and the defense an opportunistic, run-stopping behemoth. We didn't know exactly what we had on October 25. By the end of the day on October 26, we had a Big Ten champ.
6. No. 18 Iowa 37, No. 5 Michigan State 6
October 30, 2010
They finished 8-5 with a November meltdown, but the 2010 iteration of Iowa football was probably Ferentz's most talented team (only 2002 is even close). There were future pros all over the field, especially on the offensive and defensive lines. Nowhere was that talent more obvious than in Kinnick Stadium on this particular Saturday.
It was a perfect storm. Iowa's Big Ten (and, frankly, national) title hopes had been critically damaged in a loss to Wisconsin the previous week, a loss that felt like a fluke. Michigan State looked to be replacing Iowa among the Big Ten's pecking order. Mark Dantonio, ever the disciplinarian, immediately reinstated cornerback Chris Rucker after an eight-day stay in the Ingham County Jail, a move that rankled Iowa fans (and probably Kirk Ferentz, too). Iowa's relationship with Michigan State had been deteriorating for years, as the programs competed for many of the same players in recruiting and didn't much appreciate each other's tactics. In particular, the recruitment of West Des Moines offensive lineman David Barrent had become a point of contention. Barrent had originally committed to Iowa, before flipping to Michigan State and badmouthing the Hawkeye staff following the change.
And so the stage was set for the undefeated Spartans to enter Kinnick Stadium on the day before Halloween, not realizing they were walking into an ambush. All of the rage from the previous week's loss and the goals that would be unrealized, and all of the animosity built up in recent years between the two programs, were unleashed almost immediately. Iowa scored 17 unanswered points in the first quarter, the last seven coming on a Tyler Sash interception and lateral, returned by Micah Hyde for a score.
Excuse me, let me try that again: BATSHIT INSANE TYLER SASH LATERAL PICK SIX. There, that's better.
It was 30-0 late in the first half when Kirk Ferentz let his opinion of his opponent be known. Iowa scored its fourth touchdown with 1:01 left on the clock. The game was effectively over, and Dantonio sent out his offense with a backup quarterback solely to get to the locker room. In literally any other circumstance, Ferentz would let that happen. But when Michigan State ran up the gut with seven seconds left, Ferentz called timeout. When Le'Veon Bell ran again on third down, Ferentz again called timeout. Bell managed to run the clock out before being tackled on fourth down, but the message was sent: You bastards are not getting out of here that easy.
It was 37-6 in the fourth quarter, and Iowa hadn't thrown a pass in almost fifteen minutes, when Ferentz ran a wide receiver pass from Marvin McNutt to DJK. The pass fell incomplete, but KIRK FERENTZ RAN A TRICK PLAY UP 31. THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
The 2010 Michigan State game turned out to be the final act of that squad. The next week, Iowa looked listless and needed a fourth-quarter comeback to get past Indiana. They would not win another regular season game. That team never reached its expectations or those of its fans. But on one autumn afternoon, one day before Halloween, we all saw what might have been.
