Nebraska’s defense forced an Iowa punt, but Armstrong’s first throw of the following drive was intercepted. Ferentz, then in his 16th season at Iowa, felt obliged to say of his program, “I don’t believe it’s going to go down the drain”. “Football’s not gymnastics. There are style points in gymnastics”.
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A win over any of those three opponents would all but assure the Hawkeyes of one of the four spot in the second edition of the College Football Playoff. “They’re a good team, they just got kind of unlucky and have lost a lot of close games”. UI will face Michigan State if the Spartans beat Penn State, or the victor of the Ohio State-Michigan game should MSU falter. Those numbers tend to even out, especially now that the Cornhuskers are playing their best of the season.
Iowa (12-0, 8-0) has established a school record for wins in a season and will meet Michigan State in the Big Ten Conference Championship game Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis (7:17 p.m. CT, FOX).
Iowa is a victory away from the College Football Playoff. We wanted to be a Big Ten championship caliber team.
Iowa had just finished its first flawless regular season in 93 years, but there was no over-the-top celebration after the clock struck 0:00 to end its 28-20 victory over Nebraska on Friday.
Canzeri broke off his first touchdown run early in the third to extend the lead to 21-10, but Nebraska responded when Imani Cross found the end zone for the second time in the game.
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This wasn’t the vision for first-year Husker Head Coach Mike Riley.
The Hawkeyes were far from dominating, generating only 250 total yards and going 0 for 9 on third downs. We’ve also seen unreal highlight plays from Armstrong, positive stuff.
“A couple of times he got out, but for the most part we were trying to keep him crowded in there”. The Huskers are 7-5-1 in those games.
The game was tied 7-7 late in the first half when the Iowa defense made perhaps its biggest play of the game.
The Hawkeyes have an excellent tailback in Jordan Canzeri, who had two long touchdown runs against Nebraska, as the lynchpin of a solid offense.
If three of these nine teams lose, that opens up one bowl slot for a 5-7 team to slide into, with another selection for each additional loss of a 5-6 team. The Cornhuskers were also a 1.5-point underdog in that game.
“We had a personnel group we thought was in the game that wasn’t in the game, made a call to correct the situation from the first time, so we had an overhang on the side of the stretch run, on the strong side”, he said.
Cornhuskers’ WR Jordan Westerkamp said, “They’ll definitely remember that from a year ago and take it into this week”, so there is little ambiguity that this rivalry is getting pretty intense. Nebraska, which has suffered four losses this season in the final 10 seconds of regulation or overtime under its first-year coach, needs a win Friday to become bowl-eligible.
“I told (the players), I said, ‘I don’t really know what to say.’ I’ve never been around a team that is 12-0”. Henry Krieger Coble has come on recently and has developed into a good tight end while George Kittle leads the team in receiving touchdowns (five). “Our job is to be able to play with those guys, to go out and compete with them, because they recruit well and have had great teams in the past”. Hawaii fired Norm Chow this month after he went 10-36 in four seasons.
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“If you watch our team and you like football and you like camaraderie and teamwork, that’s what I like watching”, Ferentz said.
