Big Ten Preview: No. 4 Iowa Hawkeyes at Nebraska Cornhuskers

Now the Hawkeyes have their eyes on a bigger prize. Armstrong has not been the best this year, so this play might have been doomed from the start.

Jones returned an interception 69 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, and Gardenhire scooped up a fumble and returned it 28 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. “We have to be physical with their receivers not letting them easy off the line”, said Iowa junior defensive back Desmond King. “They weren’t the first choice at the dance and all that stuff, so I think there’s a little bit of a unique chemistry”. Nebraska should’ve beaten BYU and IL.

The groans about the Hawkeyes as a playoff team, Beathard said, are “exciting”.

The Iowa Hawkeyes have been the shock to the NCAA season. Reynolds also completed 13 of 16 passes for a career-high 312 yards with a 26-yard touchdown to Jamir Tillman for Navy (9-2, 7-1).

“That’s football”, Ferentz said that day to describe his team’s stunning collapse. It seems to me that if you watch our team play, and you like football and you like camaraderie and teamwork, which when I watch sports that’s what I really like, whether it’s a good NBA basketball team, Golden State…

Long, a three-time All-Big Ten selection and a consensus first-team All-American as a senior in 1985, knows how hard it is to try and stay unbeaten through a long and grueling season. It’s those “inches” you’ve heard Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio discuss. It’s why the Hawkeyes won’t likely flinch if they fall behind early, or if they’re down in the fourth quarter.

Instant replay was used two times today.

A loss to Ohio State cost Iowa it’s No. 1 ranking, but it still won its first outright conference championship since 1958.

“I live in Iowa so you have to support them”, Carissa Brehm, fan, said.

SB: “One of the phrases that Kirk Ferentz likes to toss around is that Iowa will never be ‘the sexiest auto in the lot, ‘ and there is some validity to that”. They want to get there with an undefeated record. Right now he’s probably using that as his mantra.

Sure, they’ve put up some dud performances this year.

But look at those games closely enough, and they suggest these teams aren’t all that different from their original expectation in every area except wins and losses.

The Hawkeyes were outgained considerably in the regular-season finale – 433 yards to 250 – by the Cornhuskers, who are 5-7 and lost four home games for the first time since 1961.

Iowa was locked into an appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game no matter the outcome of Saturday’s game, but the Hawkeyes are now all but assured of a College Football Playoff berth with a victory, instead of being put in the position of potentially playing spoiler. “It’s just a methodical approach to football and they know what they’re doing”. “I do believe if they are undefeated into that last game and win they will get in, so they control their own destiny”.