The Hawkeyes forced Nebraska’s Tommy Armstrong into 4 interceptions, including one pick-6.
By Jordan Hansen
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LINCOLN, Nebraska — The temperature on the field, according to the public-address announcer at Memorial Stadium, felt like 12 degrees at 2:30 p.m. Friday with a fairly strong wind blowing from the north making things even chillier.
Just ask anyone on the field, especially Husker quarterback Tommy Armstrong. It was cold.
Freezing temperatures and lots of wind, however, often end in defensive games — exactly what happened in the Hawkeyes’ 28-20 victory, which included intercepting the Nebraska quarterback 4 times.
“I feel like we stepped it up; we were kind of lackadaisical over the past few games, and we were able to get back to our early season form,” cornerback Greg Mabin said. “We were able to go out there and have a pretty good game.”
Pretty good is an understatement. A big one.
Of those 4 interceptions, one went for a touchdown and gave Iowa a 14-7 lead it never relinquished.
Iowa had just punted the ball away, moments after a short field from a muffed punt gave Nebraska a touchdown and plenty of momentum. As Armstrong stepped back to pass, defensive end Parker Hesse put his hands in the air, tipped the ball up, caught it, and rumbled in from 4 yards out to score.
It was one of the best defensive plays Iowa had on the day, but also captured the nature of the game. The Hawkeye defense (in this case it was a timely blitz from Miles Taylor) applied pressure and forced Armstrong — Nebraska’s biggest offensive contributor — into poor decisions.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Hesse said. “He was trying to make plays and, it was our job to chase him down all day and contain him.”
While Armstrong managed 46 yards rushing on 9 carries, Nebraska’s running game a whole was held to just 3.6 yards per carry. Iowa also tallied 5 tackles for loss, 4 pass breakups, and 3 quarterback hits.
The Cornhuskers did pile up 433 yards of total offense, but there’s a caveat to that. Iowa’s offense only spent 23:54 minutes with the ball, compared with Nebraska’s 36:06.
“This was definitely the first time in a while we’d had a solid defensive game,” linebacker Cole Fisher said. “I just tried to stay focused.”
Focus, it seems, might have been lost at times against Indiana, Minnesota, and Purdue — Iowa’s last three games — but against Nebraska, it wasn’t. Iowa allowed just 10 points in the second half, only 3 in fourth. Keep in mind that Iowa was without its best defensive player, Desmond King, for the first quarter; he was suspended for being late to a team meeting during the week.
The Hawkeyes also stopped Nebraska twice on fourth down, one of which was a fourth-and-1 play at the Iowa 19. Armstrong threw a fade but, as it had been for most of the night, Iowa’s defense — in that instance Mabin — came up with a play.
With the Iowa offense having issues at times getting into gear, it seemed that the defense was going to have to weather the storm and step up. They did, keeping Armstrong and the rest of the Husker offense mostly contained and walked out of the hostile stadium with a gleaming 12-0 record.
“We knew coming in it was going to be a tough environment and tough team to play against,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “It was hard-fought.”
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