The Iowa football team stunned No. 2 Michigan on Saturday, and may have turned its season around in the process.
By Blake Dowson
Oh, what a difference a kick makes.
On the leg of true freshman kicker Keith Duncan, the Iowa football team has breathed new life into its season after it upset No. 2 ranked and 21-point favorite Michigan, 14-13, on the evening of Nov. 12 in Kinnick Stadium.
After a trip to Penn State on Nov. 5 that resulted in the most yards a Kirk Ferentz-led Iowa team has ever given up, not many people expected the Hawkeyes to even cover the spread against the Wolverines.
“Really simply, you’ve only got two options. You surrender, and mope, and feel sorry for yourself, or you do something about it,” Ferentz said after the win, speaking about the team’s mindset after the loss to Penn State. “… So I’m really proud of our guys getting off that mat.”
The Sun shone a whole lot brighter over Kinnick and the adjacent football practice facility on Sunday morning than it had last week.
After the loss to Penn State, the team seemed broken, possibly beyond fixing.
There were questions regarding moods in the locker room. There were questions regarding whether coaches should be retained and questions on whether there were any wins left on the schedule with Michigan, Illinois, and Nebraska ahead.
Quite frankly, a 5-7 finish to the season seemed a whole lot more likely than 7-5 or 6-6; 8-4 wasn’t even a consideration.
But then the Sun went down on Nov. 12, and the lights around Kinnick came on, and the No. 2 Wolverines ran right into a spirited Iowa defense determined to save its season.
All year, the team has talked about how “the eye in the sky doesn’t lie” and that watching tape is the best way to fix problems.
And with the whole country giving the team exactly zero shot at winning against Michigan, linebacker Josey Jewell saw enough on tape to say otherwise.
“I was talking to Josey two days ago, and we were talking about the game, and he asked how their defense looks,” quarterback C.J. Beathard said. “And I said, ‘They’ve got a good defense.’ I was like, ‘How’s their offense look?’ and he goes, ‘Their offense is good.’ But Josey told me they were ready to go, and all week he said, ‘Give us 14 points, and we’ll win the game.’ Just happened to be that exact thing.”
Jewell held true to his promise, and so did Beathard, to launch a celebration unlike anything Iowa fans have witnessed since the historic 1985 game between the same two programs.
Beathard threw for only 66 yards against the No. 1 pass defense in the conference, but the offensive line, in vintage Iowa fashion, wore down the Michigan front seven in the fourth quarter.
Akrum Wadley rushed for 116 yards, and LeShun Daniels Jr. added 55 more against a team that gives up slightly more than 100 yards on average.
It all led to Duncan, w
ho sneaked his kick between the uprights and turned Iowa into a team that looks awfully capable of going 8-4.
“We put our minds to it before the game even started and said that we believed in it and believed in each other,” cornerback Desmond King said. “We had this opportunity to take down a top-ranked team playing in our stadium. The fans were into the game, very electric, and we had a lot of energy … we just believed we could do it.”