Only when No. 5 MI fell to Appalachian State has a higher ranked team been beat.
Advertisement
Saturday was for the Bison and now Sunday is too.
Cam Pedersen’s 37 yard field goal attempt stayed just within the upright as North Dakota State upset 13th ranked Iowa 23-21 as time expired. A 59-0 win against South Carolina State ends the streak of disappointing offensive performances as Clemson gets tuned up to host those red-hot Cardinals on October 1 in Death Valley. And here I am writing the post I said I’d be writing two years ago. “We have a ton of respect for them”. What we’ve done in the past has given us this opportunity to think that we belonged. “We have a lot of things to correct and fix…we just got to move on”. The Bison armed with two time outs opted not to onside-kick the ball.
LeShun Daniels jumped to his feet after being tossed out of bounds at the North Dakota State 3-yard line. A 29-yard run up the middle by Stick highlighted what proved to be the game-winning drive.
Klieman believed the fourth quarter, and thus the game, would go NDSU’s way.
“It still hasn’t sunk in for me yet”, Pedersen said. I thought I hit it well contact wise and I thought it was going to go in.
“It was a little closer than I would have liked, but we got the end result”.
The five-time defending FCS Champions outgained Iowa 363-231 in total offensive yards, and decimated the Iowa’s defense on the ground rushing for 239 yards.
“They are a very aggressive, tough football team and we didn’t measure up”, said Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz. Good win for Texas A&M, a team looking more and more unsafe to Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss in the SEC West. “They’re really a good football team”.
Both offenses got off to sluggish starts.
Last week’s 42-3 domination of rival Iowa State encapsulated what Daniels and Wadley can give the Hawkeyes when they’re at their best.
North Dakota State quarterback Easton Stick led the Bison on two impressive fourth quarter drives, which included a seven-yard touchdown pass to senior running back Chase Morlock. The freshman finished eight of 12 for 122 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Penniston with 7:25 left to give the Badgers the lead for good, 20-17. DeLuca, who had 135 tackles last season and leads the team with 18 so far, is the only FCS player on the preseason watch list for the Butkus Award and Menard recorded 10 sacks a year ago.
After NDSU tied the game at 14 early in the third, Iowa regained a 21-14 edge late in the quarter on a nine yard connection between Beathard and Vandeberg.
“Even if they have 10,000 people here, hopefully there will be 60,000 of our fans here drowning them out”, quarterback C.J. Beathard said. Armstrong converted a fourth-and-9r with a 14-yard pass to Jordan Westerkamp before taking off on his winning run for the Huskers (3-0). It was the first ever loss to an FCS team for the Hawkeyes.
(8) Washington 41, Portland State 3: In Seattle, Jake Browning threw three touchdown passes in the first 16 minutes and Washington closed out its uninspired nonconference schedule with a victory over Portland State. “Then you’ve got to bring the rest of your teammates along and say, ‘Hey, it’s not the end of our season'”. Ohio, a 27-point underdog, was within 21-19 when Dobbs and Malone connected again with 11:07 left in the game. The Tide needed just three plays and 37 seconds to pull within 24-10 after Calvin Ridley ran for a 6-yard score. That one inch will likely haunt the Hawkeyes for the rest of the season – perhaps even longer.
North Dakota State was able to control the clock keeping Iowa’s potent offense off the field. The career record is 174 receptions set by former wideout Kevonte Martin-Manley.
Advertisement
Football is famously a game of inches, and no two teams found that out better on Saturday afternoon than the No. 13 Iowa Hawkeyes and the North Dakota State Bison.
