Iowa football rewind: Cooper DeJean’s impressive non-returnable return, Deacon Hill’s close calls

IOWA CITY — The Big Ten replay official’s invalid fair catch call on Iowa’s Cooper DeJean had an obvious outcome on the result of Iowa’s 12-10 loss to Minnesota.

Without the penalty, Iowa would have had a 16-12 before the extra point or 2-point conversion attempt lead with 81 seconds remaining. With the way Iowa’s defense was playing, that lead would probably be safe. With the penalty, Iowa’s offense came up short of the 20-25 yards necessary to get into realistic field goal range and lost.

But as costly as the controversial call was, Iowa did not do much offensively to put itself in a position to win either. The Hawkeyes had only 12 yards in the second half and 127 yards total.

“Clearly we want more points and more yards,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “I'm not sitting here saying whatever we had was enough. It's not enough. We need to do better.”

Here are some observations after re-watching the game:

DeJean’s impressive non-returnable return

The infamous fair catch debacle understandably left a sour taste in Hawkeye fans’ mouths.

It followed, and overshadowed, the sweetness of what would have been DeJean’s 54-yard punt return for a touchdown — a play Ferentz described as “one of the best ones I've ever seen.”

The punt took a high bounce at about the 50-yard line, and DeJean caught it on the Iowa 46-yard line.

Minnesota long snapper Brady Weeks was darting toward DeJean, but DeJean spun out of Weeks’ tackle with ease.

Another six Minnesota players were within about 5 yards of DeJean after Weeks’ missed tackle, but DeJean left all six in the dust as he sped down the sideline.

The mix of linebackers and defensive backs DeJean bested included Tyler Nubin, one of the best safeties in the 2024 NFL Draft class. Defensive back Tariq Wilson appeared to be the only one to make any contact with DeJean.

After outrunning another Minnesota player, he turned toward midfield.

Then it was Minnesota tight end Nick Kallerup’s turn to look silly trying to tackle DeJean. Kallerup could barely get a hand on DeJean in a feeble attempt at an open-field tackle.

At that point, only two Minnesota players had not yet been duped by the agile DeJean, and one of those two players was the punter. The Iowa special teams star then had a clean path to the end zone for the last 32 yards as he worked his way to the southwest corner of the end zone.

Minnesota defensive back Coleman Bryson, one of first players DeJean outmaneuvered, was the only one who was remotely close to catching up to DeJean.

“An unbelievable effort gets taken off the board,” Ferentz said after the game.

A small consolation is DeJean, already projected as a possible first-round pick, surely improved his draft stock despite the nullification of the play.

Costly turnovers, and some near-turnovers

Quarterback Deacon Hill gave up three turnovers — two fumbles and one interception — and two of the three came back to haunt the Hawkeyes.

Hill’s first fumble set up Minnesota in Iowa territory before a missed 43-yard field goal bailed out the Hawkeyes.

The second fumble gave the Gophers the ball on the Iowa 11-yard line and turned into a field goal. The third turnover — the interception on a pass significantly offline from the intended receiver, Seth Anderson — essentially ended the game.

As frustrating and costly as the three turnovers were, it could have been a lot worse.

Hill got away with a few passes that could have realistically been intercepted. That includes a throw in the first quarter that was thrown right to where defensive back Justin Walley was waiting. Fortunately for Hill, Anderson collided with Walley in time to avoid the interception.

A throw by Hill in the fourth quarter essentially hit Walley in the chest, but Walley could not haul in the interception. (The incompletion did not count against Hill’s 10-for-28 stat line because of an offensive holding penalty.)

Two plays later, Nubin almost picked off Hill as the talented safety got in front of Iowa wide receiver Diante Vines on a throw down the middle on third-and-28.

“Iowa will be lucky to just punt this one away,” play-by-play broadcaster Paul Burmeister said on the NBC telecast.

Pro Football Focus counted six turnover-worthy plays by Hill, which were the most out of any Power Five quarterback in Week 8.

Nonexistent ground game... except for the sneaks

Iowa again had a heavy dose of rushing plays for much of Saturday’s game. Offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz ran only one passing play between the 8:02 mark in the second quarter and the 8:22 mark in the third quarter.

The run-heavy approach worked against Wisconsin a week earlier, but Minnesota was much better-prepared for the run than the Badgers were.

The Hawkeyes averaged a paltry 0.4 yards per carry with 11 rushing yards on 28 attempts. If one excludes Hill’s four sacks, which officially count as rushing attempts, Iowa would have averaged a still-subpar 1.75 yards per carry.

One of the few (relatively) bright spots for the Iowa offense was the quarterback sneak.

Hill’s four quarterback sneaks netted 9 yards. Of course, 2.25 yards per carry is not what teams usually strive for, but it was noticeably better than the running backs’ 1.65 yards per carry.

Three of the four sneaks resulted in either a first down or a touchdown. The most impressive one was in the fourth quarter as Hill stayed on his feet for a gain of 7 yards. It was the Hawkeyes’ longest rushing play of the day.

Big Ten West situation

Here is a look at the Big Ten West standings after Saturday’s loss:

1. Wisconsin (3-1)

2. Iowa (3-2)

3. Minnesota (2-2)

4. Nebraska (2-2)

T-5. Northwestern (1-3)

T-5. Purdue (1-3)

7. Illinois (1-4)

Iowa no longer controls its own destiny in the Big Ten West after suffering its second conference loss, although the road to Indianapolis is certainly not insurmountable.

Wisconsin’s half-game lead in the division is likely to disappear after the Badgers take on No. 3 Ohio State, and Minnesota will likely lose to the Buckeyes later in the season (and therefore have at least three conference losses).

That theoretically opens the door for a two-loss Iowa team to win the Big Ten West, and ESPN Analytics gives the Hawkeyes at least a 63 percent chance of winning in each of their remaining games.

However, Iowa can ill-afford to take the four remaining games for granted, especially in the wake of a loss that ESPN Analytics and many others also projected Iowa to win.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com