IOWA CITY, Iowa ­— The house of cards Northwestern built its season upon has fallen apart. And when it came time for coach Pat Fitzgerald to push his chips to the center of the table, he folded in a crushing 17-10 overtime loss to Iowa on Saturday.

After a third down stop by the defense with less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter, Fitzgerald elected not to use one of his two timeouts to stop the clock and give the ball back to his offense. Instead, the defense stopped the Hawkeyes again on fourth down, and the Cats took a knee into overtime.

“We were playing to win the game. We wanted to see what happens,” Fitzgerald said. “We got a third down stop, and they were kicking into the wind, so you knew they were going to have to go for it. It’s a catch-22.”

In the extra session, Iowa scored on its first possession, and then NU turned the ball over on downs to end the game.

— Rohan Nadkarni

Read the full story here.