Way down in the (Gopher) hole

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Jason White had no chance.

The walk-on senior running back is the one in the white jersey you see swarmed under a pile of three or four maroon jerseys during the onside kick in the fourth quarter that caught the Iowa Hawkeyes with their thumbs in their ear holes.

Sure, excellent execution by Minnesota. The Golden Gophers (2-6, 1-3) lined up in a regular kick after scoring an all-too easy TD to pull within five points with 8:22 left in the fourth quarter.

Minnesota made a late shift. That might've been where the entire Iowa sideline, Kirk Ferentz and the coaches up in the press box let out an "ohhhh fudge."

Ohh fudge, to say the least.

"I don't want to say an obvious situation, but it's certainly something they could do at that point," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "It made perfect sense. They needed another score and they stole a possession there."

White had no chance. The Gophers drove him to his back and senior safety Kim Royston made a clean recovery. There was no Hawkeye within maybe 7 yards.

You know the rest.

Minnesota drove 59 yards and quarterback MarQueis Gray crashed in from the 3-yard line for the game-winner in a 22-21 upset of sputtering Iowa (5-3, 2-2).

The Gophers kept Floyd of Rosedale with an upset of Iowa for the second consecutive season in TCF Bank Stadium and sent the Hawkeyes to their fifth straight regular-season road loss. This is the first time since 2000 Iowa has lost to Minnesota and Iowa State in the same season and it was the Hawkeyes' fourth straight loss in a trophy game.

That was Iowa's normal kick return team out there in a "hands" team situation. You remember hands team, right? Wide receiver Marvin McNutt is the king of Iowa's hands team. He recovered two onside kicks to seal it against Northwestern.

Saturday, McNutt was on the sideline with the rest of the hands team.

"They didn't show the onside look," said McNutt, who caught seven passes for 101 yards and a TD. "They motioned over and the play had already started, basically."

White had no chance. The Gophers, whose 371 yards offense was their best output in five weeks, drove him to his back and made a clean recovery. There was no Hawkeye within maybe 7 yards.

Ferentz said Minnesota's onside kick wasn't a total surprise. Fourth quarter, down 21-16, yeah, that's not a surprise. But yet, it sure looked like a surprise.

"It wasn't a total surprise that they attempted an onside kick," Ferentz said. "We could've thrown it out there, I guess, then maybe you end up with the ball on the 15. It was good execution on their part and we didn't do a good enough job.

"We have free right to that ball, too."

Closest Hawkeye was White. He was on his back, which is sort of where the Hawkeyes are now heading into a November run where they'll face the only two ranked teams (Michigan State and Nebraska) on their schedule this season.

"We decided 30 seconds before we did it," first-year UM coach Jerry Kill said of the perfectly executed onside boot by Jordan Wettstein. "We needed to make something happen and we did."

Iowa heads into the teeth of fully exposed.

The defense is a house of cards. It had a relatively clean first half Saturday, but the Gophers' 11-play, 80-yard drive, capped by running back Duane Bennett's 1-yard plunge, brought the Gophers within 21-16 and set up a situation where, yeah, maybe they could try an onside kick.

"We got what we deserved today and we got exposed for what we are in certain areas," linebacker James Morris said. "Coming from this, now we know where we have to improve. It's unfortunate that it took three losses to get to this point, but it's only forward from here."

It's unfortunate, yes, and it might be too late.

Ferentz weaved around the onside kick failure and talked more of the blown opportunities on offense.

The Hawkeyes scored three TDs on six trips inside Minnesota's 20-yard line. That's 50 percent and, percentage-wise, that would've landed the Hawkeyes at No. 103 in the nation in TDs in the red zone this week.

Running back Marcus Coker rolled up a career-high 252 yards, third-highest total in a game in Iowa history. But Iowa's best and most consistent offensive weapon Saturday carried the ball just twice in the fourth quarter, when Minnesota walloped the Hawkeyes in time of possession, 13:25 to 1:35.

Quarterback James Vandenberg, who finished 16 of 24 for 177 yards and a TD, was blindsided on a blitz and fumbled when Iowa was at Minnesota's 14 in the third quarter. Keep the blitz thought for Iowa's final, last-gasp drive, when the Gophers brought pressure on every play.

Iowa's grand total on the final drive was three incompletions and a Vandenberg 9-yard scramble on fourth-and-15. With junior wide receiver Keenan Davis out (sprained ankle), sophomore Don Shumpert was in on offense for the first time since Pittsburgh on Sept. 17.

Tight end Brad Herman, who Ferentz railed on for something on the sideline in the first half, dropped a pass and didn't see another coming.

"We put our best guys out there, the best who were ready to go," Ferentz said. "We try to do that in every situation, typically."

Maybe the hands team wouldn't have recovered that onside kick.