Kirk Ferentz changed QBs, really! Iowa Hawkeyes then changed game, crushed Northwestern

IOWA CITY — Hey, a shark sighting in the Iowa River!

Hey, peace and quiet on Iowa City’s downtown Pedestrian Mall a 2 a.m. on a football weekend!

Hey, Kirk Ferentz making a quarterback change!

It took a horrendous interception for a Northwestern second-quarter pick-6 Saturday for the Hawkeyes’ coach to finally give quarterback Cade McNamara the hook. Or so it was assumed, though Ferentz said later that McNamara was hurt on a play in which Northwestern was called for roughing the quarterback, and he did get clobbered.

Nonetheless, given the recent public outcry for McNamara to get benched for Brendan Sullivan, you almost wondered if Theran Johnson’s pick-6 quietly made Iowa fans semi-happy.

If, that is, it meant a changing of the quarterback.

Never let it be said Iowa isn’t a program for the people, albeit on a delayed basis. Ferentz subbed out McNamara in the second quarter and inserted Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan. A 7-3 Iowa deficit became a 12-7 halftime lead, which snowballed into a 40-14 Hawkeyes triumph at Kinnick Stadium.

Sullivan remained the People’s Quarterback after playing for three quarters, which will make things a lot less noisy in Hawkeyeland in the week ahead.

Sullivan, he of two pass attempts all season, he who was the losing starting QB in last year’s Iowa-Northwestern game played amid the sinkholes on the field of Wrigley Field? Yes, him.

Saturday, he was on the winning side of a Northwestern-Iowa game. And doggone it, Hawkeye fans like him.

They loudly cheered a mundane 3-yard run by Sullivan on his first series, before it concluded as a three-and-out. They cheered him harder when he got the Hawkeyes from their 48 to the Northwestern 26 late in the first half before Kaleb Johnson did the rest with one rush.

“I definitely heard them,” Sullivan said. “The amount of support they had for me when I’m out there, it was pretty cool.”

Sullivan improvised runs. He also ran by design. He had a 6-yard touchdown run to start Iowa’s 28-point third quarter. He even led the blocking after a short flip to tight end Johnny Pascuzzi turned into a 40-yard play.

After the game, former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald had a hug waiting for the player in the tunnel leading to Iowa’s locker room. Before that, many current Wildcat coaches and players embraced and congratulated Sullivan.

Sullivan gets the headline, but in a fair world he would share it with the entire Iowa defense (zero points and 163 yards allowed), punter Rhys Dakin, Johnson, and kick-returner Kaden Wetjen.

The first half was a lot of gobbledy-goo, with no offensive touchdown scored by either team until Johnson, the All-America candidate, did the inevitable in the half’s last minute and broke away for that 26-yard score for a 12-7 lead.

It was Johnson’s 14th touchdown in eight games and 18th carry of 20-plus yards. That became 16 and 20 when he had third-quarter scores of 41 and 25 yards. His season-long performance has remained special.

The only two players in the nations with more TDs — Ashton Jeanty of Boise State and Army’s Bryson Daily — play on offenses that average 40 points. However, the Hawkeyes are almost at 30, about double what they scored a season ago.

Wetjen busted a punt return 85 yards for a third-quarter touchdown. Many viewers of Iowa games this season felt it wasn’t if, but when Wetjen broke a punt or kickoff return that counted. He had a 65-yard punt return for a TD against Illinois State on Aug. 31 that was erased by penalty.

“I knew it would happen,” Wetjen said. “It was only a matter of time before the pieces finally came together.”

Anyway, back to the first half. There’s an old saying in football that goes like this: “If your starting field position on four consecutive drives is your 6-yard line, your 6, your 6 and your 5, you eventually will pay the piper.”

Thanks to Dakin’s punting (and the Hawkeyes repeatedly stalling near midfield), and Iowa’s defense, the Wildcats got to know the stadium’s north end way too intimately. “That is not a great place to be,” said Northwestern Coach David Braun.

One of those four possessions cost the ‘Cats a safety. The fourth gave Iowa the ball at its 48 with 1:22 left, and to the end zone it went from there.

Dakin is having a freshman season that is paying homage to his predecessor and fellow Aussie, Tory Taylor. Unlike Taylor, Dakin came to Iowa as a freshman-aged freshman, 19.

Iowa went 18,662 miles round-trip to recruit Dakin in Australia. Wetjen grew up 28 miles from Kinnick in Williamsburg, then walked on here after a year of junior college ball in Council Bluffs. He was used to winning at Williamsburg High and Iowa Western Community College, and has played like a winner at Iowa.

As for Sullivan, he was shaken, rattled and rolled by Iowa’s defense last year in a 10-7 loss. Saturday, he and the ‘D’ were partners in punishing Northwestern. A good time was had by them, and their fans.

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