Sash cashes in blocked field goal

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- If there is one team in the country that knows what to do with a ball after a blocked field goal, it's the Iowa Hawkeyes.

The Hawkeyes allowed Northern Iowa to recover a blocked field goal after it didn't go past the line of scrimmage. Iowa lived after a miraculous block of a second UNI field goal in the '09 opener.

Iowa is coached to leave the ball alone. Tyler Sash went ahead and picked the ball up anyway.

Iowa defensive ends Adrian Clayborn and Broderick Binns broke in and blocked Michigan kicker Seth Broekhuizen's 38-yard field goal attempt (Clayborn was officially credited with the block). The ball fluttered and died at Iowa's 15-yard line.

Sash looked at the ball. Looked at Michigan's field goal unit jog to the sidelines and thought, why not?

"I figured I might as well just pick it up," Sash said. "What are they going to do, blow it dead?"

Sash picked it up and returned it 37 yards to Michigan's 48. This eventually led to an Adam Robinson 4-yard TD run.

"I just picked it up and tried to get as many positive yards as a I could," said Sash, who also had his first interception of the season, returning that 36 yards to set up an Iowa TD drive. "I didn't know if they were going to blow it dead or what they were going to do. I was just trying to get as many yards as I could."

For the record, the Hawkeyes are still coached not to touch a blocked field goal.

"Usually, we're taught to get away from the ball in blocked field goals, I picked it up and I just tried to get as many positive yards as I could," Sash said.

Maybe Iowa needs a little more work on this one.