51-14

IOWA CITY - Iowa drove 76 yards on 12 plays to take a 7-0 lead at Minnesota last season. And then after that, the Gophers flipped over Iowa's dinner table and the gravy and the good china flew all over the grandma's treasured linen tablecloth.

It was basically 'The Midwest Chainsaw Massacre,” with the Hawkeyes playing the part of the body parts in the freezer.

'It was 14-7 and they got the ball and they scored,” Iowa sophomore guard Sean Welsh said. 'And then there was a turnover and at that point, I felt like that's when the wheels came off in that game.

'At that point, we were just fighting for air. It was our best effort, but we weren't playing to win at that point. We were playing to stay alive.”

The Gophers answered with 21 unanswered before then-Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock fumbled on a sack. The Gophers added another 7 unanswered points and it was 28-7 in the second quarter.

Minnesota piled on 51 unanswered points. They're called 'unanswered points” for a reason. Iowa had zero answers and, basically, submitted.

'They did what they were supposed to do last year. We didn't. We didn't reciprocate,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. 'That's what competition is about. We walked into one and I say it to our players all the time: In sports you typically get what you deserve, and we got what we deserved.

'We got out-coached, outplayed, any way you want to slice it. There are a lot of things that happened last year, and that was last year. This is a different team, different year, and different opportunities.”

The Hawkeyes (9-0, 5-0 Big Ten), No. 5 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, will look to continue their startling about-face of a season against the Gophers (4-5, 1-4). Iowa has the same head coach, but it is a different team and it does have an opportunity Saturday to climb within one game of clinching the Big Ten West Division title. Minnesota has a new head coach in defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys, who was promoted on Wednesday after serving as interim coach in the wake of Jerry Kill's sudden retirement due to health reasons on Oct. 28.

Claeys served as a longtime assistant under Kill. He brings the same no-nonsense approach. He's very much cautioning his team this week that last year was last year. This is a different team, different year and a whole different set of opportunities, for both teams, really.

'It snowballed,” Claeys said. 'You have games like that. We weren't that many points better than Iowa last year. Good football team. Just so happens between the turnovers and everything, just snowballed, got on a roll, more things went our way that day.

'They're playing better this year, there's no question. They've kind of gelled. Things are going their way. It will be a tremendous challenge. At the same time, being a trophy game, our kids will be excited. I expect us to play well. It will be a tough environment.”

If you're worried about the Hawkeyes' minds slipping on the 51-14, don't.

The replay from the game has been played all week on the giant flatscreens that line the Hansen Performance Center. All the gory details, right there in HD. They can't escape it.

'What we've tried to do around here is learn from it,” Welsh said. 'There's a happy medium between learning from it and dwelling on it. That's kind of what we've been trying to do, just learn from it and then flush it.”

There is a lot going on surrounding this game. It's a night game with kickoff at 7 on the Big Ten Network. Of course, Iowa wrestling is scheduled to play host to No. 1 Oklahoma State on a mat on the Kinnick Stadium FieldTurf at 11 a.m.

At the end of his news conference Tuesday, after stepping away from the lectern, Ferentz popped back for a second and said, oh yeah, the Hawkeyes are playing for the Floyd of Rosedale traveling trophy.

Oh yeah, that.

The Iowa staff has put up pictures of Floyd, the 98-pound bronz pig trophy, in key viewing spots for players to see, from the hallways to the lockerroom to the weight room.

'A loss that bad is terrible and inexcusable but just the fact that it was a trophy game against a rival who we have history with, that just made it even worse,” junior cornerback Greg Mabin said.

This is the third stop on the Hawkeyes 'Revenge Tour.” OK, that's overstating it, but after they went 0-for-4 in trophy games last season, Iowa has won back two (Cy-Hawk Trophy against Iowa State; Heartland Trophy against Wisconsin). The pig is a crown jewel, easily the most recognizable of Iowa's traveling trophies.

Yes, this is a different team with very different opportunities in front of it. Floyd, however, is an indelible. They all know that.

'It's a reminder of what happened last year and it's a motivator to try to get that pig back,” guard Jordan Walsh said. 'It's a trophy game, it's bragging rights for the year, the goal is to get the trophy back.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com