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Stumbling Hawks need repairs in hurry
IOWA CITY - The Iowa Hawkeyes are a college football team with serious defects.
Even the most ardent Iowa fan has to admit that now.
The Hawkeyes stumbled against Northwestern, 38-31, before 67,047 fans at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday when they had trouble protecting C.J. Beathard, had trouble running the football and had trouble stopping the Wildcats when it counted.
Northwestern scored 21 straight points in the second half, turning a 24-17 deficit into a 38-24 lead when Austin Carr caught his third touchdown pass for the Wildcats with 12:06 left in the game.
Northwestern averaged 16.3 points in its first four games for the worst scoring offense in the Big Ten, but the Wildcats got healthy against the leaky Hawks on a damp day in Iowa City.
Northwestern sacked Beathard six times for 42 yards in losses and hurried him into an errant pass that was intercepted with 58 seconds remaining to seal the victory. By contrast, Iowa sacked Northwestern quarterback Clayton Thorson just once.
Iowa tailbacks LeShun Daniels and Akrum Wadley combined for only 107 yards on the ground, and Iowa's net rushing total fell to just 79 yards on 41 attempts when the sacks were subtracted.
Meanwhile, Northwestern tailback Justin Jackson carried the ball 26 times for 171 yards all by himself.
The Hawkeyes fell to 3-2 overall for the season and 1-1 in the Big Ten, and this was supposed to have been the "easy" part of the schedule with games against Miami (Ohio), Iowa State, North Dakota State, Rutgers and Northwestern. So much for that. Read more...