Donnybrook in Metrodome: Hawkeyes close campaign with wild 49-42 victory over Minnesota Gophers

(Published 11/20/1994)

MINNEAPOLIS -

If you watched on TV, you probably didn't believe your eyes.

If you were there, you had trouble catching your breath.

If you played in the game, you'll remember it the rest of your life.

In a wild, crazy, nutty, unbelievable type of Big Ten football game, the Iowa Hawkeyes defeated Minnesota, 49-42, before 53,340 disbelieving fans Saturday night in the Metrodome.

How's this for nuttiness?

Tim Dwight, the fourth-string tailback, threw a touchdown pass to quarterback Matt Sherman for a 42-32 lead late in the third quarter.

Four seconds later, the Hawkeyes scored again when Bo Porter returned a fumbled kickoff 10 yards to the end zone for a 49-32 bulge.

And you know what? The game was far from over at that point.

Minnesota scored 10 points to pull within 49-42 with 3:06 left and Iowa had to hold on for its life.

"Unbelieveable," said Iowa Coach Hayden Fry.

In a game of wild offensive fireworks, it came down to a defensive stand by the Hawkeyes at the end of the night.

Parker Wildeman sacked Minnesota quarterback Tim Schade for an 8-yard loss at the Gopher 15-yard line with 1:25 left, then Bobby Diaco tackled Chuck Rios short of a first down on 4th-and-8.

Iowa (5-5-1, 3-4-1) ran out the clock and kept possession of Floyd of Rosedale.

"Thank gosh our guys sucked it up at the last," said Fry. "Otherwise they probably would have gone right down the field and scored again."

Minnesota (3-8, 1-7) finished last in the Big Ten after scoring its most points against Iowa since 1949.

"How you can have 562 yards of total offense, score 42 points and not win is beyond me," said Gopher Coach Jim Wacker.

It's simple. Demo Odems and Bo Porter recovered fumbled kicks for a pair of touchdowns, giving Iowa a 14-point edge in specialty teams. That offset all those fancy numbers by Minnesota.

Otherwise the game looked like something you'd see on a sandlot some Sunday afternoon, except with lots of polish.

"It was kind of a street fight there," said U of I guard Matt Purdy. "We scored, they scored, we scored. We knew we had to outscore them."

Odems and Sedrick Shaw, the distant cousins from Texas, scored twice apiece as Iowa finished the 1994 season in style.

"Sed told me to have a big game or he'd beat me up," joked Odems.

It was the second big game in a row for the Hawkeye offense: 49 points against Northwestern last week and 49 more against the Gophers.

"We've got a high-powered attack coming back next year," said Odems. "We're excited about it."

Sherman was the trigger man again, passing for 258 yards and two TDs in his second start.

"He's a dandy quarterback," said Wacker.

The Hawkeyes and Gophers have been tangling in this border skirmish since 1891. They never combined for this many points before. The previous high was 75, all by Minnesota in a 75-0 blowout in 1903.

The teams combined for 997 yards of total offense. Schade passed for 365 yards and Chris Darkins rushed for 188 yards and three TDs for the Gophers.

The first half was jam-packed with spectacular plays and ended with Fry complaining about a bum call that cost Iowa its fifth touchdown of the half.

The Hawks settled for a 28-17 lead at intermission after an exhilarating 30 minutes of football.

It started early when Dwight separated Minnesota's Rodney Heath from a Nick Gallery punt at the goal line, with Odems recovering for a Hawkeye touchdown less than two minutes into the game.

That was just the opening salvo in a game-long brawl.

Darkins split a pair of Hawkeye defenders and raced 56 yards for a touchdown, tying things at 7-7.

That happened less than three minutes into the game.

A few minutes later, Tavian Banks exploded around the right side of the Minnesota defense and scooted 25 yards for a TD. That made it 14-7 for the Hawkeyes.

The Gophers got a field goal and the first quarter ended with Iowa holding a 14-10 edge.

Minnesota took a 17-14 lead in the second period when Schade found Rios in the back of the end zone for an 8-yard TD, but the Hawks came storming back on a pair of sensational plays by Shaw.

The first one took several looks at the big-screen replay board at the Metrodome to believe.

The Hawkeyes picked up a blitz and Sherman hit Shaw in stride near the U of I sideline. Shaw tip-toed to stay in bounds, then did a 360-degree spin to elude a Gopher defender before loping to the end zone for a 46-yard touchdown.

"It was just instincts," said Shaw.

Brion Hurley's PAT made it 21-17, but there was more to come.

Sherman passed 33 yards to Anthony Dean. Banks ran for 11. Kent Kahl banged for 22. Banks ran for 9 more.

A penalty set them back, but Shaw took a straight handoff, cut and juked and high-stepped 17 yards for another Hawkeye score and a 28-17 advantage.

Iowa threatened again in the first half when Dwight fielded a punt, started to his right, stopped and circled left for a 42-yard return.

Sherman passed Iowa to the 6-yard line, where his fade pass to Dean appeared to give the Hawkeyes another score. The catch was ruled out-of-bounds and Fry complained as he left the field.

All that happened in the first 30 minutes.

The second half began where the first half left off, this time for the Gophers.

Darkins capped a quick 59-yard drive with a 1-yard run with 12:47 left in the third quarter, and Schade's two-point pass to Tutu Atwell brought Minnesota within a field goal at 28-25.

Then, whoosh, the Gophers scored again right after a Hawkeye punt.

Schade sucked Iowa's defensive backs toward the line with a play-action fake and lofted a pass to Aaron Osterman, wide open behind the secondary for an 80-yard TD. Chalberg's PAT gave

Minnesota a 32-28 lead with 9:03 left in the third.

Anything you can do, we can do better, said the Hawks.

Sherman passed 16 yards to Odems. He passed 20 yards to Harold Jasper. He passed 34 yards to Odems and the Hawks had another touchdown of their own. Hurley's PAT gave Iowa a 35-32 lead with 7:12 left in the third and nobody could catch their breath.

The Hawkeyes got the cushion they needed on Dwight's touchdown pass to Sherman, followed quickly by Porter's TD on the ensuing kickoff.

Sherman has thrown many touchdown passes during his life, but he'd never caught one before.

"Tim put a good ball up and I just watched it into my hands," he said.

The play began with Sherman giving Dwight the ball on an apparent end-around, but Dwight circled deep in the backfield as Sherman snuck into the end zone.

Iowa caught Minnesota in man-to-man defense. "Obviously, you don't have anybody assigned to play pass defense against the quarterback," Fry explained.

Mick Mulherin splattered Minnesota's Rishon Early on the ensuing kickoff, and when the ball popped loose Porter was there to scoop it and score. It was Porter's second touchdown in two weeks on specialty teams.

"I wish we could play one more game so I'd get another one," he said.

Not this year.