Hlas: All Hawkeyes needed to do was start finishing

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Just when all evidence pointed to Iowa's football team plotting to drive its coaches and fans stark raving mad, it instead shifted all torment to its helpless opponent.

What the Hawkeyes did in putting its followers through an emotional ringer was nothing compared to its physical cruelty toward the Fighting Illini of Illinois Saturday at Memorial Stadium. The final score was 30-14. It could have and should have been something like 56-7.

Not that it mattered. Whether by hook or by crook, the Hawkeyes had to win here to make the coming week count for a lot. They did more than that, dominating a game no one living in a state that doesn't start with an ‘I' cared about.

But now, this Saturday's Wisconsin-Iowa game is a thing now in the Big Ten West even if the Hawkeyes are in the pregame roles of extras to Badger record-setter Melvin Gordon.

At halftime here, the Hawkeyes led by a paltry 9-7. It felt like they were losing even though they so clearly were the better team. You miss on one scoring opportunity, that's football. But Iowa failed to seize chance after chance, starting with the first possession when it was halted on fourth-and-goal at the Illinois 1.

'There's no way you can get stopped at the 1-yard line,” said Iowa senior tight end Ray Hamilton of two-touchdown fame. 'Especially with the physical guys we have up front, the good fullbacks, the good tight ends we've got.

'There's no way you can get stopped at the 1-yard line. We take a lot of pride in that up front and I'm sure they do in the backfield. That's on us. That's a mind-set, ‘Hey, I'm gonna do my job to get whoever is about to touch the ball in the end zone.' We need to put up six points there. There's no excuses.”

But that was just the beginning of the madness. The Hawkeyes were stymied in Illinois territory on their second and fourth possessions. They didn't convert a 4th-and-2 or a 4th-and-3 in second-quarter drives.

Quarterback Jake Rudock bobbled away a center snap. Marshall Koehn's 46-yard field goal try to close the first-half clanked off an upright.

It was halftime, and it was just 9-7 against an Illinois defense that has more bend than a banana. Was this subconscious self-sabotage? Nah, it was just failing to take final steps. It was forgetting to click the terms-and-conditions box to complete an Internet transaction.

It's not like Iowa's 294-108 advantage in first-half yardage was a mirage.

'If you're not finishing drives then your yards aren't worth anything,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said.

Asked if the halftime mood was more of confidence or frustration, he said 'Some of both. I think the guys realized we were doing some good things.

'There was no drama, really. At some point you've just to dig in and do something. You've got to finish drives, which we didn't do. You've got to protect the ball.”

After yet another failed 4th-and-short on their first drive of the second half, the Hawkeyes went into full finish mode. The next three drives were 71, 66 and 86 yards of neat and nasty efficiency.

Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, rout. It didn't undo the grotesque 51-14 defeat at Minnesota the week before, but it at least swung the pendulum back in the positive direction.

Nothing feels better for a team than to run roughshod over someone. Iowa had 55 rushes to just 24 passes. Senior Mark Weisman's season-best 134 rushing yards led Iowa to a season-best total of 304.

'Seeing that 300 number come up there for rushing yards was pretty cool,” Weisman said. 'That's a step in the right direction.”

If nothing else, the Hawkeyes felt like a football team again, reacquired the good taste of being the grunters instead of the groaners.

The Hawkeyes had to escape Illinois with a win to make this Saturday's Game of the Year against Wisconsin the Game of the Year. But they did more than slink out of here. They stormed back home.

Now comes the real madness. And, a very real opponent.

Comments: mike.hlas@thegazette.com

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