By Adam Hensley
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Akrum Wadley, the key to Iowa’s offense, ignited the Hawkeyes late in their 21-19 loss to No. 4 Penn State on Sept. 23.
Hawkeye fans remember his late-game heroics — turning a relatively short floated pass into a 70-yard score and burning the Penn State blitz on a 35-yard touchdown run to take the lead with fewer than two minutes remaining in the game.
Take away those two plays, however, and Wadley had a pedestrian game at best.
“It felt like that was probably one of my worst games I ever played here,” Wadley said.
It’s not all Wadley’s fault. Iowa’s offense as a whole could not get into a rhythm, and the numbers don’t lie; the Hawkeyes held the ball for only 20:21 of the game, while the Nittany Lions nearly doubled that mark. Penn State shut down an Iowa rushing attack averaging 180 yards per game to only 82.
Let that sink in — almost 100 fewer yards than the Hawkeyes average.
If Iowa wants to snag its first Big Ten victory of the season against Michigan State on Saturday, it’ll need a better performance from Wadley and company.
“Akrum [makes] some plays on his own,” head coach Kirk Ferentz said earlier this season. “He’s really good at that, obviously, but we’re going to need to help him. It can’t just all be about Akrum.”
Iowa couldn’t get anything going on the ground in the first quarter. Wadley carried the ball three times, picking up only 2 yards.
The second quarter was even worse. Wadley touched the ball nine times, twice through passes and seven times on carries, and compiled 6 yards of total offense. The tailback picked up 8 yards on his pair of receptions, but accumulated minus-2 yards in the running game.
Through three quarters, Wadley’s yardage totals grew, thanks to a big run on the quarter’s final play, a 20-yard scamper to move Iowa into Penn State territory.
But earlier, when the Hawkeyes drove down to the Nittany Lions’ 36-yard line, Wadley fumbled the ball, costing Iowa a chance at regaining the lead and giving the ball back to Penn State, which drove down and scored on a Saquon Barkley touchdown.
“Everybody was just like, let’s get back up,” Ferentz said. “Four years ago, [Wadley] was reckless, not careless. I’ll start there. He’s in the zone now. He’s paying attention to things. That was not a matter of him being reckless or careless. If that’s the case, that’s an issue. But I think he’s certainly graduated out of that realm.”
Wadley bounced back with a fourth-quarter performance capable of making fans forget his lackluster first three quarters.
His long touchdown catch and run combined with his breakthrough rushing touchdown run late in the game came after patience, he said.
“Big plays are [going to] happen, especially when you’ve got the line we got blocking,” Wadley said. “You got guys like Matt VandeBerg and Nick Easley blocking down field — they do a really good job. That takes a lot of stress off the running backs and other playmakers on the team, because we’re all playing together. Big plays are [going to] come; you just got to execute.”
Iowa faced a heavy Penn State blitz all evening long, and for all but the two big plays by Wadley, the Nittany Lions contained Iowa’s offense.
The Hawkeyes chipped away at the rush, looking to dink-and-dunk passes in an attempt to break through.
“That’s what we try to do with the checks,” quarterback Nath Stanley said. “That’s the game plan for anybody, I think.”
But even with the checks down, Iowa couldn’t muster anything on offense for most of the game.
Through the first four games of 2016, Iowa scored 9 touchdowns on the ground and 8 through the air.
Through four games this season, the Hawkeye offense scored 12 times through the passing game and four times in the rushing attack. In Iowa’s season-opening win against Miami (Ohio) last year, the Hawkeyes scored 5 rushing touchdowns, one more than this year’s team total after four games.
The Hawkeye offense is based on the ground game, even with first-year offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz’s tweaks.
It all comes down to the concept of how a good running game sets up the passing game, because if Iowa wants its first conference victory of the season to come against Michigan State, Wadley and the rest of Iowa’s ground attack need to be on their A-game.