No. 17 Iowa 40, No. 21 Northwestern 10

EVANSTON, Ill., - The Iowa players did interviews outside of their lockerroom Saturday at Ryan Field. There was a pretty horrific smell coming from a nearby dumpster. The exterior ranked somewhere between low-security detention center and alley.

Akrum Wadley was in another world. He didn't smell, see or care what Northwestern had in front of him.

He leaned into cameras and notebooks. He smiled. The next few minutes were an exercise in not spontaneously combusting.

'Beginning of the season, my weight was going up and down,” Wadley said, raising his hands for graphic illustration. 'Then, the fumble against Illinois State, that put me down.

'It's all about trust.”

The No. 17 Hawkeyes have needed a lot of help getting to 7-0 (3-0 Big Ten). Redo has been the standing field order for the offense the last seven weeks. Both starting offensive tackles out? Quarterback limping around like the hip replacement didn't quite take? Another day, another running back with a high-ankle sprain?

It's almost like the deeper the Hawkeyes have to reach to find a player to plug in, the more powerful they get. It's almost really like the Hawkeyes are a big ol' circle of trust right now that's rolling.

Wadley put up career highs with 26 carries for 204 yards and four TDs (35, 4, 2, 4) in the Hawkeyes 40-10 victory over Northwestern (5-2, 1-2) before 44,135 Saturday at Ryan Field.

Big ol' circle of trust. It's rolling.

'Needless to say, this is a really resilient bunch of guys we are coaching right now,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. 'It seems like whatever we throw at them or whatever comes their way - good, bad or indifferent - they seem to respond in a really positive way.

'How good we are, I have no idea right now, but I do know this, this team plays extremely hard and it has a lot of guts.”

On his third carry after senior Jordan Canzeri left the game with a high-ankle sprain, Wadley burst 35 yards untouched for a touchdown, the first of his four TDs. Wadley carried exactly five times after his fumble, which was his fourth in 36 carries in his career in garbage time week 4 against North Texas.

'It's all about trust,” Wadley said. 'I've been grinding and holding the ball tight. I didn't fumble today and haven't fumbled lately. It's a trust thing. I gained some trust today, there's one in the bank. I'm just trying to keep up, keep it up, huge momentum boost.”

You saw true freshman offensive lineman James Daniels enter the circle of trust last week, jumping out to play tackle for the first time after Ike Boettger was injured. Daniels started at left guard and left guard Sean Welsh switched out to right tackle.

So, the running back with fumble problems ran the ball behind an O-line down both of its starting tackles and a true freshman at one of the guards.

This didn't really pair well with the quarterback who could barely move. C.J. Beathard didn't practice all week, but he showed up Saturday and sort of massaged Iowa's offense along, completing 15 of 25 for 176 yards with an interception. Battling an array of leg injuries (hip and groin), Beathard conducted an offense that put out 492 yards (a season-high 294 on the ground, with sophomore Derrick Mitchell kicking 79 yards and a TD) compared to just 198 for Northwestern (Iowa's 6.3 yards per play over NU's 2.9 is a win 10 out of 10 times).

'That's just the way the season's gone so far,” said Beathard, who's the first Iowa QB to win his first eight career starts. 'We've had guys hurt, Drew (Ott) got hurt; our right and left tackles were going out. We've taken that upon ourselves and the next guy in has done a great job.”

That was a lot of words on the offense, which, hey, is a great story with the adversity coming in truckloads. But you know that none of this is possible without the defense Iowa is putting on the field week after week. This group lost senior defensive end Drew Ott with a season-ending knee injury last week.

This week, it held NU running back Justin Jackson to 30 yards on 10 carries (he averaged 110.2 coming in), it held the Wildcats to 51 rushing yards (it averaged 213.7 coming in) and it held down the NU offense and gave it noogies in the second half, holding the Cats scoreless and to 80 yards on 29 plays (2.75 yards per play).

'If we stop them from scoring, they can't win,” said cornerback Desmond King, who picked off his sixth pass this season. 'The game depends on us. The offense will feed off us. If we stop them from scoring, there's nothing else they can do.”

Iowa goes into a bye week before it plays host to Maryland (2-4, 0-2) on Oct. 31. It obviously has some healing to do, most specifically Beathard.

'He didn't do a lot this week,” Ferentz said. 'He was looking like Amos McCoy early in the week, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday. You guys have to look that up.”

How bad can it be when the coach references a black-and-white TV show from 1957 called 'The Real McCoys”? Well, Amos was played by Walter Brennan. He was the grandfather of the McCoys.

So, to the healing power of the cold tubs.

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