New Jersey native Akrum Wadley wasn’t recruited by Rutgers, and he said that motivated him.

By Jordan Hansen | [email protected]

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — It was fitting Akrum Wadley scored the Iowa football team’s game-winning touchdown against Rutgers.

He grew up 15 minutes from High Point Solutions Stadium but was never heavily recruited by Scarlet Knight coaches and did not receive a scholarship offer. While current coaching staff had nothing to do with Wadley’s college decision, it was obvious the game still meant a great deal to him.

His touchdown followed a Brandon Snyder forced fumble and recovery, which gave the Hawkeyes possession just outside Rutgers’ 20-yard line. After a false start, Wadley got a handoff, made one cut, and danced down the sidelines for a touchdown.

“I’ve been thinking about this game from the first time that I heard Rutgers joined the Big Ten,” Wadley said. “The play, it was just an outside zone, beautiful blocking by the line, the fullback, and Jerminic Smith — it was there for the taking.”

The Scarlet Knights weren’t able to score again, and Iowa won the game, 14-7.

Wadley finished as the leading rusher on the day, totaling 84 yards. Fellow running back LeShun Daniels Jr. added another 77, while quarterback C.J. Beathard ran for 37.

It was a huge improvement over the 34 rushing yards the Hawkeyes had against North Dakota State on Sept. 17 and a much-needed boost. Not everything was perfect, but the team did a much better job moving the ball on the ground against Rutgers than it did against the Bison.

Certainly, it helped to have center James Daniels and offensive guard Sean Welsh return to the starting lineup after injuries knocked them out of the previous two games.

“That’s one thing: Through our first four games, we’ve had a lot of good responses out there,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “That’s encouraging, and there’s a lot of good things we’re building on.”

If Iowa can’t run the ball, little else in the offense works, simple as that. The Hawkeye wide receivers are not getting great separation, leaving play-action as the coaching staff’s main avenue of moving the ball downfield through the air.

Rushing the ball, of course, sets up the play-action, and if teams don’t respect the run, they’ll devote extra defenders to pass coverage, making quarterback C.J. Beathard’s life more difficult.

When Iowa can move the ball on the ground, everything flows quite a bit better.

Just as they did against the Bison, Wadley and Daniels took the majority of the carries. They split things pretty evenly, too, as Wadley had 12 and Daniels 13.

For the first time this season, Beathard also put together a significant game running the ball, toting it 10 times.

“I think there were two designed quarterback runs in there, but it wasn’t necessarily part of the game plan,” Beathard said. “Sometimes protection broke down, but we’ll see all that stuff on tape.”

It seemed there was a conscious effort by the coaching staff to spread around the ball, and for the most part, it worked.

There were a number of drives in which the offensive was bogged down and forced to punt, but things began to click a little better late in the game. Ferentz went to Daniels late to close things out.

The senior got 4 carries on the last drive, totaling 27 yards and 2 first downs. His final one was the most important, rushing for 12 yards on third and 7 with a little over a minute remaining.

After he saw that he had crossed the sticks, it was a moment of relief for him and perhaps the offense as whole.

“Uh, I was excited,” Daniels said and gave out a relieved laugh. “The coaches trusted me … I got to do what I do best and that’s run the football.”

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