A really great win

[4thngoal]

Looks like we might be much more balanced next year. If the guys who could leave early stay, we could be pretty good.

 

[HuckFinn]

MN came to Iowa undefeated, highly ranked, enjoying the best season in a long time, full of confidence/swagger, with an outstanding QB and top shelf receivers and a stable of running backs behind a solid O line. Off a big time upset a week ago. Add in a pretty darn good coach whose players buy into his program. They run an RPO at a very high level, which is tough for anyone to defend. They threw for a ton of yards against our depleted D backs, but could not run the ball vs Iowa’s D.
Iowa came in to the game with three losses by a total of 14 points, the toughest of which was to arch rival, WI., only one week ago. The recipe for folding in a tight game.

And, we won. That is all.

 

[Grady]

The key was scoring a TD on the first drive, stopping them, and scoring another. The third touchdown on 3 drives dictated the rest of the game.

Also, the decision by Fleck to not take the points and go for it on 4th down down 7 in the 3rd quarter was awful. I know their kicker sucked, but it was like a 30 yarder. If you have zero confidence in him hitting that then you better go for 2 every play. Fleck is a good coach and will learn, but he needs to show more patience and resiliency especially on the road. Kirk stood there while he punched himself out.

Agreed that Fleck really cost his team this win. In addition to the terrible decision you mention to go for it instead of taking the easy FG in the 3rd quarter, I thought his decision to kick the FG with 4 seconds remaining when they had 1 play from the Iowa 2 yd line (after the PI call in the EZ) was a great gift...if they could have cut the lead to 20-10 at half after being completely dominated that would have deflated the Hawks a bit, and the difference between 20-3 and 20-6 is negligible. Then his decision to showboat and run onto the field allowed the Hawks to start at their own 22 instead of their own 7 late in the game -- and we know what BF's playcalling turns into inside the 10. Rookie mistakes by a coach who's only been coaching in the Big Leagues for 3 years. But man, their QB Morgan, despite being a little undersized, is accurate as hell. Reminds me a lot of when I saw Drew Brees when he played for Purdue...they moved him around a lot more on roll-outs and such, but that dude was accurate with the pigskin even back then.

It must also be said that Stanley threw some absolute bullets last night. Seeing some his long sideline throws being made on a rope before his WRs had even come out of their routes 20-30 yds down the field was impressive. Other than under and overthrowing guys during the first possession, one of Stanley's better days I thought.

 

[NCHawker]

THis is the kind of game that gets in your blood and keeps you a hawkeye fan. This is the kind of game you sort of imagine during the offseason. This is the kind of game that you rewatch a few times.

 

[iloveyoularrystation]

I'm not sure but I wonder if they are trying to preserve a redshirt with Brents. I thought I read somewhere a while back that they are preserving it with Merriweather.

yeah they are seeing if they can get by with brents. they think Koerner and Merriweather are even so that's why they are trying to preserve merriweathers. schott kirk is in love with which is why he got his place back and is playing. Koerners been with the exception of isu and this minny game...….okay lets call it. hasn't hurt the team a ton. No more then the freshman linebackers did last week against wiscy anyway. but he really struggled in this game. If this was a video game his agility rating was pretty low this week against some wr's for minny who are faster, taller, can jump higher, are stronger, and with a much better agility rating. Having said that. The big gains they got turned into few points Saturday so the defense stood up when it needed too. The skyball that one of their guys got, he just outjumped the universe, and none of our guys make that stop. But some really good wr's for minny did make our secondary look pretty silly several times Saturday. But honestly they've done that too everybodies, and Iowas defense was able to mitigate that damage, which is a testament to the guys.