By Jordan Hansen
The last time Iowa pulled up to TCF Stadium — the 2014 season — it was not a pretty sight.
Minnesota scored 28 points in the second quarter en route to a 51-14 win. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Hawkeye players have varying recollections of the game.
“I remember it was embarrassing, a real embarrassing game,” running back Akrum Wadley said. “Blurry game — I don’t want to remember.”
There was probably not a more disappointing loss for Iowa that season, because it meant far more than a Taxslayer.com Bowl loss to Tennessee did. Minnesota’s win was one of Jerry Kill’s great victories as head coach, and it was tight end Maxx Williams’ breakout game.
It was a disaster on a lot of fronts for head coach Kirk Ferentz and the rest of the team. It came at a crucial point in the season, as well. At the time, the Hawkeyes only had one loss in conference play and were coming off a 48-7 throttling of Northwestern.
A win would have put them in prime position for a spot in the Big Ten Championship game. After all, the Hawkeyes lost to Wisconsin (the eventual winner of the West) and Nebraska by a combined 5 points.
Ferentz isn’t wrong when he says there’s a fine line between wins and losses.
“That’s kind of the history of the program. I don’t think we’re unique that way,” Ferentz said. “The trick is to push it over the top.”
This year’s game comes at a crossroads of the season. Iowa needs to pick up a win in the Big Ten West to realistically stay in the race for Indianapolis. The Gophers are in a similar position, coming off a loss to Penn State.
Minnesota head coach Tracey Claeys knows what’s in store and did little to drum up hype for the game when asked about it during a Tuesday press conference.
“You know, they’re physical games, and so we’ve been on both ends of them,” Claeys said. “There are good ones, but there’s some pretty bad ones, too.”
So how is Minnesota going to try to open up the game? A recipe that’s worked for most of the Hawkeyes’ opponents this season — make Iowa defend the run.
Rushing for nearly 230 yards per game, the Gophers will be up against an Iowa defense that has struggled mightily to stop opposing running backs. The last time the Hawkeyes headed north, it gave up 291 yards rushing, with David Cobb and Mitch Leidner leading the way.
While Cobb is in the NFL, Leidner still is running the show for Minnesota. He’s a mobile quarterback and can hurt a team in a number of different ways.
Leidner has also played against Iowa three times and probably has a fairly good idea of what he’s going to see.
It’s a dangerous matchup for the Hawkeyes, and that Iowa possesses Floyd of Rosedale only compounds the challenge.
“In order for us to accomplish our goals we set this preseason, winning this game is big,” Wadley said. “Not only for record, but one of our goals was to keep all the trophies in the building.
“This is a big game for us.”
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