The No. 5 Iowa football team won the Big Ten West Nov. 21, moving to 11-0 on the season.
By Danny Payne
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A reporter asked Cole Fisher to think back to before the season began. Did the Iowa linebacker see 11 wins in 11 games and a Big Ten West Division Trophy?
He chuckled and said no. Who would have? On Nov. 21, by way of a 40-20 win over Purdue in a frozen Kinnick Stadium, that happened. The Hawkeyes will play in Indianapolis Dec. 5 for the Big Ten Championship. They’re at least the second-best team in the Big Ten and will have the chance to prove they’re the best in a few weeks.
“I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” Fisher said. “Our philosophy the whole time has just been to do the little things right, over and over again. When you do the little things, it turns to big success. So far, this season has been a pretty cool example of that.”
The whole season has, yes, but so was the win over the Boilermakers (2-9, 1-6). When Iowa did the little things, it succeeded, when it did not, it did not. When the offense executed blocks the right way and finished plays, it scored. When it did things like lose focus, it stalled and had no rhythm.
That was the difference between the Hawks looking like themselves — the offense that has posted 30-plus points for the fifth-consecutive week — or looking like they did in the third quarter, when they managed only 7 carries for 8 yards.
“We weren’t sustaining drives, we weren’t converting on third down, we weren’t getting first downs, we were behind the chains a lot,” said running back LeShun Daniels Jr., who finished with 31 yards and 2 touchdowns. “Just focusing on our jobs, focusing on the little things got our drives going at the end of the game.”
Defensively, it was much of the same story. After being spotted a 20-0 lead in the first half, the Hawkeye defense let the Boilermakers back into the game, getting the score as close as 20-13.
However, when it came down to it the most, that defense made plays, as evidenced by the Hawkeyes’ forcing that field goal to make it 20-13, rather than letting the Boilermakers convert a third-and-5 from the 8-yard line.
“We gave up a couple deep balls again,” cornerback Desmond King said. “We just have to correct those mistakes and get back to it.”
Before they begin to correct those errors, the Hawkeyes will continue their celebration of the West Trophy. It’s somewhere no one expected the Hawkeyes to be before 2015 kicked off.
With that title under their belt, they can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing they’ll be in Indianapolis and knowing they’ve proved their doubters (this writer included) wrong.
Moments like these don’t happen often, so making the most of them is only fitting.
“To be able to do that this year is really great,” center Austin Blythe said. “That’s a special moment, we were playing for something today and we got it done … it was a lot of fun to have that moment with your teammates you’ve been working so hard with since the end of last season is really special.”
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