One big smirking-face emoji of a 41-3 domination for Iowa over the Gophers

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa has more daily drama in every dormitory, sorority, fraternity, lecture hall and library than was witnessed Saturday at Kinnick Stadium.

The Hawkeyes played like a Top 25 football team, and should be one late Sunday morning once Associated Press counts its ballots. Minnesota, meanwhile, played like 25 pounds of caught fish that hadn’t been thrown back into one of its 10,000 lakes.

The story of Iowa’s 41-3 win at Kinnick Stadium was this: The game began. Then the Hawkeyes quickly, efficiently and ruthlessly ended it.

“They absolutely dominated the football game from start to finish,” said Minnesota Coach P.J. Fleck.

After the Gophers had four possessions and Iowa three, the Hawkeyes held a 31-0 lead. Fuzzy math? Yes, but not as foggy as the way the Gophers had to be feeling.

In the space of 18 minutes and 37 seconds, Iowa scored on a rush, a field goal, an interception return, a pass and a punt return for a 31-0 lead. Somehow, it didn’t reach the end zone on horseback or motorcycle.

Minnesota, on the other hand, found moving the ball forward to be deeply challenging. On the Gophers’ first drive of the second quarter, they lost two yards, lost seven yards, and lost two more yards for their third three-and-out.

Then it got even worse. They made the dire mistake of punting to Kaden Wetjen, who caught the ball at the 50 and did what he does to get a touchdown return. Once in the end zone, the son of Williamsburg did a rowing gesture to mock Fleck’s “Row the Boat” mantra. He admitted later that he planned to do just that if he scored.

“We had like three other guys doing it in the end zone,” Wetjen said. “I was kind of mad we didn’t coordinate it. We could have had a whole boat thing.”

As gestures go on punt returns, that was far more pleasing to the Kinnick crowd than the one two years ago in which Cooper DeJean was ruled to have made an invalid fair catch signal that negated a desperately needed late-game touchdown.

Watching Wetjen’s score on TV in Philadelphia, DeJean quickly posted a tweet with three smirking-face emojis.

The game was one big smirking-face emoji for the Hawkeyes against their border-rival of over a century. Had he requested, Floyd of Rosedale could have been lugged back to the trophy case in Iowa’s football complex in the second quarter.

The old pig doesn’t get out much, though, and chose to hang around for another couple hours for the annual ceremony of big young men carrying a big old trophy around the Kinnick FieldTurf.

On fake grass, a faux pig observed a metaphorical butchering. ‘Twas a cold cut indeed for a Gophers team that came here with a 5-2 record.

Minnesota took all the goodwill it built up north by beating Nebraska 24-6 the week before and dumped it out once it crossed the state line into Iowa.

The Hawkeyes played three of their statistical hits in the opening 20 minutes. The first thing was Mark Gronowski getting the initial touchdown of the avalanche on a 2-yard keeper as his team smoothly went 75 yards in nine plays after taking the opening kickoff. That gave Gronowski a TD run in all eight of Iowa’s games, an uncommon streak for a quarterback.

The second thing: After Iowa scored a mere field goal for a 10-0 lead, the Gophers’ next play was a pass intercepted by safety Zach Lutmer, who returned it 34 yards for six points.

“Credit the coaches,” Lutmer said. “They talked about it yesterday, trying to score. They talked about the play that I actually got a pick on. So I'll give thanks to them.”

Crazily, the Hawkeyes had returned interceptions inside the opponent’s 1-yard line in their previous two games. This time, they went the distance to mark 18 straight seasons in which Iowa has recorded a pick-6.

“I'm just glad that we kept the streak alive,” said Lutmer, “because our coaches were bringing it up this week.”

The third thing was when Wetjen housed that punt return, the third kick he brought back for a touchdown this season and fifth in his last 14 games. That tied him with Tim Dwight for the most kick-return career touchdowns at Iowa. Wetjen said Dwight texted him before the game. Whatever Dwight wrote, Wetjen took it to heart.

Wetjen’s predecessor, DeJean, was a brilliant punt returner himself. However, he had just one return for a TD. One that counted, anyway.

In the midst of all that scoring was defensive ownership by the Hawkeyes. Minnesota had a meager 133 yards.

Gophers freshman quarterback Drake Lindsey has had some good days this season, and is a great foundation piece for Fleck. However, this game could most kindly be described as a learning experience for Lindsey. More precisely, it was a nightmare.

If you’re Iowa, you might hate to see the schedule giving you the coming week off the way you’re playing. Unless you’re defensive coordinator Phil Parker, who gets two weeks to get ready for Oregon here Nov. 6.

That ought to be fun, huh? This season has gradually become quite fun for the Hawkeyes, and the next game in particular now we’ll see if they have a big finishing kick in November.

“I’m super, super excited for what these next couple weeks will bring,” Wetjen said. He won’t be the only one.

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