The Iowa Hawkeyes flipped the script on the Cyclones, winning this year’s CyHawk game on a late field goal to pull out a 16-13 win. It was a scrappy, ugly, sometimes dirty game that was pretty much in line to how this series has gone these last ten years. But the Hawkeyes exorcised the demons of the last two years with a Caden Burr field goal from 42 yards out with :15 seconds left to bring the CyHawk trophy back home to Iowa City.
After last week’s performance against NIU and with a brand new regime
in Ames, many expected this to be a much more comfortable game for the Hawkeyes, especially under the lights in Kinnick Stadium with a raucous crowd. But Iowa State put Iowa into an early 10-0 hole midway through the second quarter that had the black and gold faithful starting to get that “here we go again” familiar feeling. But the offense managed to come to life, thanks to a massive 56-yard bomb to Tony Diaz that set up a Hank Brown touchdown run late the first half. A huge 45-yard Buhr field goal right before halftime reset the score and setting up a grinding second half of football.
Neither team had a great first quarter. Iowa started with the ball but procedural penalties doomed their drive. Meanwhile the Hawkeye defense held the Cyclones to only six plays in the quarter. Iowa State managed to move the chains in the second quarter with drives of nine and ten plays that ended on a Kyle Konrardy field goal and 7-yard Jalen Raynor touchdown pass, respectively. Raynor’s stat line tonight won’t impress anyone: 10/19 for 117 yards, and no touchdowns with some crucial misfires on potential big plays. But aside from those misses he made no back breaking mistakes that allowed the Iowa defense to capitalize.
Iowa State regained their momentum coming out of the break with an eight play drive that ended with another Konrardy field goal. Running back Aiden Flora had the play of the drive with a 34-yard scamper down to the Iowa 19, but holding and illegal substitution penalties stalled the drive leading to the Konrardy kick to put ISU up 13-10. Iowa’s offense went in to hibernation as they could not get Kamari Moulton going on the ground, the Cyclones were clearly committed to stopping the run and it worked for much of the game. Iowa’s first three drives of the second half went for only 21 yards (four plays), 8 yards (3 plays), and -5 yards (3 playes, not helped by a holding penalty on Dotzler). Woof.
However, in the fourth quarter the offense found just enough production to put together a couple of scoring drives, while the defense locked in to hold Iowa State to only eight yards until their final, futile drive of the game. After punting on the first drive of the quarter, Brown was able to connect on some short passes to pick up just enough chunks of yards to keep the chains moving while Moulton started to come to life on the ground. Buhr connected from 32 yards out to knot the game at 13 all, and the defense promptly held the Cyclones to a three and out with 4:28 left to play.
The ground and short passing game continued to produce positive results on Iowa’s final drive of the game. With the clock winding down and Jimmy Rogers burning through the last of Iowa State’s timeouts, the Hawkeye offense worked its way down to the Cyclone 24. Iowa couldn’t run the clock all the way down as Moulton went off a few plays earlier with an apparent shoulder or arm injury and Xavier Williams couldn’t convert on third and short. But with :15 ticks of the clock left, Caden Buhr kicked a beauty through the uprights to give Iowa the late lead.
Iowa State would still have one last chance and they nearly got in Hail Mary range. In a bizarre echo of the Michigan clock fiasco from last week, officials reviewed the game clock after Raynor connected to receiver Omari Hayes over the middle, who came down with the ball with :00 left on the game clock. After a review in which everyone and their dog expected one second to be put back on the clock for a last gasp Cyclone heave, the Big XII referee announced that Hayes was indeed down with :01 second left. However, obviously trying desperately to calm the furious Kinnick crowd, he announced that by rule they could not put that small of an amount back on the clock with ISU having no timeouts left, and the game was over.
Hank Brown ended the game with a 21/30 for 191 yards stat line with no touchdown passes, but he did run one in for Iowa’s only touchdown trip. With him taking every offensive snap it’s pretty clear he’s won the starting spot moving forward. Maybe we’ll still see Hecklinski next week against UNI. Brown being in 100% of the time may have been a symptom of just how tight this game was and Kirk not wanting to throw another variable into the equation. And credit to Brown who didn’t make any critical mistakes or turnovers and led the offense into field goal range for the game winning score.
Pretty or not, it feels good to get out of this morass of a football game with a win. Iowa State travels to Bowling Green next week while Iowa hosts the UNI Panthers in Kinnick. The Hawkeyes finally set this series right, winning on a game clinching field goal of their own, and the CyHawk trophy once again resides in Iowa City, with maybe a couple extra dents in it.
Appropriate for El Assico. Go Hawks.
