Cyclones shut down, shut up the Hawkeyes and their silent offense

IOWA CITY — Iowa’s 6-game football winning streak over Iowa State has been broken, and “broken” is the operative word in Hawkeyeland.

We’ll get to Iowa’s shattered offense in a bit. First, you have to really, really hand it to Iowa State for shrugging off some awful red-zone blues and earning its victory against Iowa’s renowned defense Saturday at Kinnick Stadium.

The Cyclones’ 10-7 triumph was a team effort, strange as that may seem with such a low score. Their defense, obviously, was sensational. They dominated Iowa’s offensive line nearly the entire game, denying the run and getting in quarterback Spencer Petras’ face repeatedly.

Petras’ accuracy was nothing of the sort, which certainly didn’t hurt the ISU cause, and Iowa’s entire cockamamie offense was brutal for the second Saturday in a row. But first, here’s to the winners.

Iowa State’s offense needed to come up huge on just one drive, did come up huge on one drive, and what a drive it was. The Cyclones went 99 yards, maybe 99.5 yards or even 99.7 after getting the ball following a lost fumble by Iowa fullback Monte Pottebaum before reaching the goal line.

ISU went 21 plays for the game-deciding fourth-quarter touchdown. That’s going into the lion’s den and pulling out its teeth.

It was 11 minutes and 49 seconds of hell for the Hawkeyes’ defense, after three-plus hours of it for Iowa fans watching their team’s hopelessness on offense. The Hawkeyes’ lone score came after getting the ball at the ISU 16 following one of Lukas Van Ness’ two blocked punts, and wait, what?

That’s right. Van Ness blocked a pair of Cyclone punts, both giving the Hawkeyes the ball in the red zone, and they still didn’t win the game.

By the way, Iowa State scored a total of three points in its three first-half red zone appearances, and still didn’t lose the game.

The rainstorm that plagued the game’s last five minutes was symbolic on both sides. This was a cleansing for the Cyclones, who had beaten every Big 12 opponent home and away in Matt Campbell’s tenure as head coach, but had never gotten the best of Iowa.

Campbell’s crew had gotten Oklahoma’s goat, had messed with Texas. Now, finally, it has shut down and shut up its state rival.

The symbolism of the downpour for the Hawkeyes? The rain and dark gray skies perfectly captured their gloom.

Iowa had 150 yards, which would be unbelievable if it weren’t so believable. The 166 yards it had in a 7-3 win over South Dakota State is the team’s high-water mark.

You can win one game the way the Hawkeyes won last week’s if you’re very fortunate and have all the defense and great punting heaven will allow. Two, however, was a bridge too far.

It’s not as if Iowa State’s defense came in with a reputation equaling Iowa’s. Southeast Missouri State had 247 first-half yards against the Cyclones the week before, though SEMO faded and was on the wrong side of a 42-10 beating.

However, the Cyclones’ defense was superior to Iowa’s acclaimed unit. When push came to shove, Iowa couldn’t go 99 yards for a score, or 88, or 77, or more than 16.

“It’s not representative of our offense,” Petras said. Isn’t it, though?

Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta got defensive in postgame interviews, saying “The average fan, average reporter — you guys might (bleep) on (Petras), but I see what he does in practice and the work he puts in.”

Here’s the thing: Reporters here like Petras very much, and any fan who knew him would do the same. He’s the kind of person you hate to see struggle. He’s a stand-up guy with great intelligence and humility, someone who has curiosity and appreciation and a world view and a work ethic, someone beloved by his teammates and coaches.

He simply isn’t playing a good brand of quarterback on a unit that isn’t playing a good brand of offense. He should have been replaced at halftime Saturday, if not sooner. Who couldn’t see that, besides his coaches?

It’s the second week of September, and it’s already been the weirdest, least-savory season the Hawkeyes have had in many years. Iowa will play other defenses that aren’t terrible, let alone the occasional excellent one.

Iowa State, meanwhile, came to Iowa City with dialed-down expectations from the outer world. It bused back home with a trophy that hasn’t resided in Ames in a long time.

Sophomore quarterback Hunter Dekkers has picked up admirably and immediately after Brock Purdy’s graduation to the NFL. Dekkers came into this house of horrors for opposing quarterbacks, and shook off the Kinnick wall of sound after enough early mishaps that would have been fatal most games.

He completed two-thirds of his passes, not fewer than half like Petras. His blockers contributed mightily to that effort, holding Iowa to one sack.

Iowa’s top three QBs are from California, Colorado and Ohio. Iowa State’s No. 1 guy is from Hawarden. He did his northwest Iowa hometown proud Saturday, and probably will a few dozen more times as a Cyclone.

Iowa State is a good football program that has a lot of achievements since Campbell took over, things the Cyclones had never before done. His teams often have been forces in Octobers and Novembers.

Slow starts in September, he said, is “an area we’ve really tried to address, and that probably is the greatest reward of seeing our guys persevere through adverse situations.”

Campbell’s Cyclones will finally enter Big 12 play with a 3-0 record barring a disaster against Ohio in the next game.

He and his guys got themselves one of the pieces they were missing, one that will be relived a time or two by the cardinal-clads. They vanquished Iowa, in Kinnick, and anyone who didn’t see them as the better team Saturday were in denial.

The Cyclones know their season didn’t end here. But it’s a lot more fun going into league play with some wind at their backs for a change.

The winds are howling in Iowa City. There’s no shame in losing a rivalry game against a winning program, especially for the first time in the last seven games. But two straight 7-point performances, two straight games of 166 or fewer yards, two straight weeks of trotting out an offense that looked like it was in quicksand?

That’s a lot more than having a few receivers on the injured list and others who transferred out in the offseason. (Although, who knew Charlie Jones would be a full-replacement for All-America David Bell at Purdue? Jones has 21 catches for four touchdowns and 286 yards in two games for the Boilermakers after 21 receptions for Iowa all last season, and, oh my gawd.)

No, the problems are also from having an offensive line that, for the second-straight year, isn’t ready to play at the level of so many past Iowa O-lines. The problems are from not changing quarterbacks when the starter clearly hasn’t been getting the job done.

That is being stubborn. That is being stuck. And the rain kept pouring down on Kinnick, hours after the game was over.

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