IOWA CITY — The flashback game last Saturday on KCRG 9.2 was the Hawkeyes blowing out Miami, Ohio 44-19.
The Hawks were in their third year under Kirk Ferentz and the Miami RedHawks were led by a redshirt freshman quarterback named Ben Roethlisberger.
Kyle McCann threw a career high four touchdown passes as Iowa jumped out to a 44-0 lead and won 44-19. Dallas Clark caught two touchdown passes and Kahlil Hill caught a 52 yard bomb that was a thing of beauty. Kyle threw the ball down to the goal line and Kahlil caught the ball in midair and fell into the end zone. Brads Banks also scored on a five-yard touchdown run.
Big Ben struggled all afternoon and didn’t complete a pass until the third quarter
The redshirt freshman ran for an 80 yard score while throwing two TD passes in the second half.
LaVar Woods, who is an assistant coach for Iowa, was the honorary captain.
Iowa finished 7-5 that year with a 19-16 win over Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl.
A “Get Well” Game
I know the Nevada Wolfpack is not a football powerhouse.
In fact they are the least talented team Iowa will play this year but the Hawkeyes needed this win to gain some confidence and momentum going into the Big Ten season.
First of all, Iowa had to overcome three rain delays that made the game last almost seven hours. The kickoff came at 6:40 p.m. and the game ended at 1:39 a.m.
Nico Ragaini and Keagan Johnson got their first snaps and the Hawkeyes found another freshman running back.
“It was good to see Nico and Keagan back,” said Kirk Ferentz. “That gave us a few more guys to throw it to. Again you go 60 minutes broken down over seven hours, not easy to do.”
The defense pitched a shutout and Drew Stevens was 2-2 on field goals.
The offense has been criticized in the first two games but came up with 27 points and 337 total yards.
Iowa Offense
You start with 162 yards on the ground, a 4.6 average and 7-16 on third down conversions.
Freshman Kaleb Johnson led the way with 107 yards on seven carries (14.7 per carry) including TD runs of 40 and 55 yards. Kaleb is the first freshman running back to run for over 100 yards since Tyler Goodson did it against Nebraska in 2019.
“It was good to see Kaleb run with confidence tonight,” said the coach. “He has a good attitude and is fun to work with.”
Gavin Williams had 57 yards on 16 carries.
I liked the way the offensive line was opening up big time holes
“The run game wasn’t perfect but we did some better things,” said Captain Kirk. “That was encouraging.”
Spencer Petras was 14-26 for 175 yards and a TD pass to Arland Bruce that was a thing of beauty.
Iowa had a third and one on the Nevada 21 yard line.
Spencer faked a run, sprinted to his right and found Arland wide open on the five where Bruce made a pretty over the shoulder catch. Seven receivers caught passes including Nico Ragaini and Keagan Murray who each caught two. Keagan hasn’t played since December and Nico was hurt in fall camp.
“Spencer made some beautiful throws tonight and some real near misses,” said the head man. “Nico has a veteran presence in a very young room. Arland had a heck of a game, not only on offense but on special teams. I felt a little bit more like the kind of football we want to play.”
The Hawkeyes have a seven player rotation in the offensive line which should pay off as the season progresses.
“We rotated three guys at the guard spot,” said coach Ferentz. “Pretty much stable everywhere else.”
When Iowa runs the ball well, Spencer looks better at QB, Brian Ferentz has more plays to call and the receivers seen to get open more.
Iowa came into the game averaging 57.7 yards and 1.9 yards per carry.
I really think that if there were not any rain delays the Hawkeyes would have scored more points.
Iowa Defense
The Hawkeyes got their first shutout since 2019.
They gave up only ten first downs, 69 yards rushing, 82 yards passing, four sacks, and 11 tackles for a loss.
“Any time you get a shutout that’s great,” said Captain Kirk. “It represents the kind of work the guys have been doing. They played well and did a lot of good things.”
Jack Campbell led the way with ten tackles. Lukas Van Ness and John Waggoner each had two tackles for a loss. Cooper DeJean had his second interception in two weeks and true freshman Aaron Graves had his first sack.
The defensive line is pretty deep so to bring Aaron on shows you how much the coaches believe he can help right away.
The longest run for Nevada was 16 yards and the longest pass play was 13 yards.
Nevada came into the game averaging 34 points, 161 yards rushing and 174 yards passing.
For the season Iowa is giving up an average of 74 yards rushing and 117 yards passing.
Iowa Special Teams
LaVar Woods told Drew Stevens Friday that he would be replacing Aaron Blom as the kicker.
“We have two good kickers,” said coach Ferentz. “You haven’t seen the last of Aaron he’s done a good job.”
Drew had field goals of 43 and 33 yards. Tory Taylor had seven punts for a 46.7 yard average with four inside the 20.
Iowa had good coverage on kickoffs and punts.
Arland Bruce had a 25 yard punt return.
“We got off the mat and got back in the fight ad did a god job in unusual circumstances,” said Captain Kirk. “So to stay focused was good to see.”
Rutgers (3-0) is up next with a road trip for Iowa.
The Scarlet Knights beat Boston College 22-21, Wagner 66-7 and Temple 16-14.
They have four running backs that have over 100 yards rushing and are averaging 34 points per game.
This will be a good test and the Hawkeyes need to keep improving on offense especially.