Ohio State and over, over (with NU boxscore + season stats)

For the first time in seven Big Ten games and nearly a year, the Iowa Hawkeyes will play a conference game without championship implications.

When the No. 21 Hawkeyes (7-3, 4-2 Big Ten) fell at Ohio State last season, they finished with a victory over Minnesota in a grunt game that gave them a 10-2 record and eventually a spot in a BCS bowl game.

This season, the championship weighed on the Hawkeyes through the first six conference games. Of course, last Saturday's 21-17 loss at Northwestern took the air out of this week's matchup with No. 8 Ohio State (9-1, 5-1) at Kinnick Stadium.

ESPN's College GameDay might've been in Iowa City for a Big Ten title showdown. No, Wildcats win and they get Chris, Lee and Kirk for their matchup with Illinois at Wrigley Field.

The Hawkeyes face Ohio State without the direct weight of a Big Ten championship on their shoulders. The only way this game has title implications for Iowa is if Michigan State (Purdue and at Penn State) and Wisconsin (at Michigan and Northwestern) lose one of their final two and the Hawkeyes win their final two.

So, it's not over, over for the Hawkeyes. But given the results the last two weeks -- a game they won on a dropped TD pass at Indiana and the fourth-quarter meltdown at Ryan Field -- there's no reason to believe that it's not over with the other "over" stamped and in the mail.

"It's a week-to-week thing," said Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi, who's never faced Ohio State, his home-state school. "That's how it was last year. We had more success, at times. We won a lot of close ballgames. We haven't been able to kind of get over that hump and win the close ones.

"It shows on the record. It shows on the wins and losses. That's pretty much the bottomline."

That is the bottomline and there was nothing championship in the Hawkeyes during a fourth-quarter collapse that saw Northwestern erase a 17-7 deficit in the final 10 minutes.

Stanzi made a misread and threw an interception that the Cats ended up taking 85 yards to pull within 17-14. Then, after Northwestern called for an all-out block that allowed Iowa to down a punt at NU's 9, Northwestern quarterback Dan Persa accounted for every yard on a 91-yard drive that culminated in a 20-yard TD pass to wide receiver Demetrius Fields with 1:22 left in the game.

In games decided by a TD or less in '09, the Hawkeyes were 4-2, including the thriller at Michigan State when the Hawkeyes executed a flawless two-minute drill.

This season, Iowa is 1-for-3 in games decided by less than a TD. In all three, the defense allowed a heroic TD drive. At Arizona, it was a 73-yarder. Wisconsin beat Iowa with an 80-yard drive ignited by a fake punt. It was 91 yards against Northwestern, including Persa's last play for 2010 after he suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon on the TD pass.

"We needed to make a stop and we didn't," free safety Brett Greenwood said. "It came down to not making a play here or there."

In each of these three defeats, after the defense yielded a long drive, the offense had a chance to answer. Four straight sacks unplugged Iowa at Arizona. You remember the whole spike thing against the Badgers. Last week, Iowa seemed clueless in how to attack Northwestern's prevent defense.

"You've just got to sit there and watch and cheer for your defense and hope they come up with a stop," Stanzi said. "If they score, you want to go ahead and respond with points. We didn't do that and that's why we lost."

How's this for a black-and-white conclusion? It's not over, over, for Iowa, but it is Ohio State, which is looking for a piece of a sixth straight Big Ten title.

Given the Iowa of the last two weeks, the conclusion will be scarlet and gray.

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