Armstrong threw for 296 yards on 25/45 passing.
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The Iowa Hawkeyes have been the shock to the NCAA season.
If Iowa’s surprise success captures college football’s unpredictability perfectly, so too does Nebraska’s 5-7 finish – albeit from the other side of the same coin. He and Iowa’s offensive lean helped the Hawkeyes rush for 153 yards, creating running lanes for running back Jordan Canzeri, another underrated senior prospect, to exploit. I can’t imagine they will be able to get in with one loss but if they can win on Friday and then knock off the B1G East champion next weekend, the Hawkeyes will achieve what many thought was impossible when this journey began.
For 2015, the bragging rights – taken to an even higher degree due to Iowa’s opportunity to go to 13-0 next week, or even 14-0 or the ultimate 15-0 via the championship series – went to the Hawkeyes.
As the game went on, however, King’s steady coverage and physicality in run support consistently put Nebraska in obvious throwing situations. He had long touchdown runs on back-to-back plays in Friday’s 28-20 win over Nebraska and finished with 140 yards on 17 carries.
Nebraska had a total of 433 yards of offense compared to only 250 yards for Iowa, but costly turnovers kept giving Iowa a short field to work with much of the game.
Iowa, with a win, will complete its first ideal regular season since going 7-0 in 1922 and keep itself in position for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Iowa will first get a chance to prove itself by going to Indianapolis to play a top-10 team: Michigan State, should the Spartans beat Penn State, or the victor of Ohio State-Michigan, if the Spartans lose on Saturday.
“We overcame our mistakes and we just won the game it was great”, said Iowa Fan, Rob McBride”.
The Hawkeyes ran only 44 plays from scrimmage to Nebraska’s 83. Nebraska S Nate Gerry was ejected in the second quarter for targeting, Nebraska’s first such ejection this season.
It wasn’t easy. It never is with this Iowa football team.
Sidney Jones, Darren Gardenhire and Azeem Victor all returned turnovers for touchdowns in the second half and Washington (6-6, 4-5 Pac-12) became bowl eligible. Iowa also played 10 games against Power Five competition, a rarity among the eight conference-game set of the ACC, Big Ten and SEC.
But look at those games closely enough, and they suggest these teams aren’t all that different from their original expectation in every area except wins and losses. Against Iowa, Nebraska inexplicably threw an unsuccessful fourth-and-one fade to the end zone at the 19-yard line with 6:37 left and an 11-point deficit – meaning Nebraska could have kicked a field goal to cut the lead to one possession.
The game turned when Toledo’s Alonzo Russell fumbled a punt to set up Davis’ second touchdown, a 30-yard catch from Zach Terrell with 1:07 to play in the first half that gave the Broncos a 25-21 lead.
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And that isn’t a good result for Riley’s first season, which came after Nebraska fired Bo Pelini following his seventh consecutive season of at least nine wins and four losses. The Cougars (11-1, 7-1 AAC) will host the title game December 5 and play either Temple or South Florida.
