Political Football

In a “sea of greene” (yeah, the Students and some other Iowa fans all had green T-shirts on today) IOWA stuns Penn State with a last second field goal to win 24-23 today at Kinnick.

Iowa now @ 6-4, have lost 4 games by a total of 12 points.  Cold, wet and windy day in Iowa City, this win was so needed by a good team with great character – this win feels so good.

If I’m not mistaken, Murray’s last field goal attempt lost the PITT game 3,4 games ago.

What a struggle.  The Hawks gave up 10 points on turnovers (a fumble by Stanzi that looked more like a bad delivery by the center) and an interception.  Penn State had too many field goals that should have been touchdowns – a great bend but don’t break – defense by the Hawks.

The game was televised to 70% of the country – a great game to watch; Shonn Greene still got a 100 yard game (117 in 28 carries)  against one of the nation’s best defenses. I think that’s 100 yards or more for Shonn in each game this season.  Was 3rd in the nation last week.

Looking at some of the final stats, Iowa’s 7-10 3rd down efficiency is remarkable, and there was less than 600 yards of offense total, mostly because of the weather.

This makes Iowa Bowl Eligible with 2 games left.  Hmmm…  This could be interesting.  We play Purdue at home next week (Kinnick should be rockin!) then the last home game at Kinnick North against the Gophers…  [called Kinnick North because typically there are more Iowa fans than Minnesota fans at that game]

Shonn Greene is having a great come back season.  He arrived at Iowa – a MAN – Huge – as a freshman in 2005, but we had a large stable of running backs including Albert Young and Damian Simms.  Not getting much playing time in 2005-2006, he got into academic trouble and ended up at a community college in 2007.  Go Shonn.

He’s a Junior, but watch for him to move to the NFL next year.

Coached thanked the crowd in his post game.  It was a game of halves.  The first half Penn State dominated but could not get into the end zone more than once.  Half time was 13-7. Bottom line – Iowa scored the last 10 points and shut Penn State out in the fourth quarter – job well done.

Just the kind of game I needed after a very tough political week.

THANK YOU HAWKEYES!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed