Football

IOWA CITY, Iowa — As the clock ticked towards zero at the end of the first quarter, and with his team down 17-0 to rival Iowa, coach Pat Fitzgerald huddled up his players.

“The Wave,” a tradition in which everyone in Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium waves at the patients at the neighboring University of Iowa Children’s Hospital after the first quarter of play, is one of Fitzgerald’s favorites in college football. But he had something to say to the group first.

“I think the guys thought I was just going to talk to them about the wave,” Fitzgerald said. “It wasn’t just that. It was more that we are going to just settle down and settle in. Let’s go. This is going to be a four-quarter game. You don’t lose a game after one quarter.”

Fitzgerald’s speech made an impact. After a start that looked more like a trip to a Halloween haunted house for Northwestern, the Wildcats (2-0, 2-0 Big Ten) came back from 17 points down to defeat the Hawkeyes (0-2, 0-2 Big Ten) in a windy Halloween matinee.

After an almost perfect start against Maryland in Week 1, Saturday’s first quarter was the exact opposite, as NU came out looking nervous and sloppy.

Senior wide receiver Kyric McGowan — thrust into punt return duties after senior Riley Lees was injured on the game’s first possession — overran Troy Taylor’s swerving punt and fumbled the ball. Iowa recovered inside the 10-yard line, and quarterback Spencer Petras found wide receiver Brandon Smith in the back of the end zone on the next play.

Just 90 seconds later, junior running back Isaiah Bowser fumbled around midfield for the Cats’ second turnover in the first five minutes of the game. It took only three plays for the Hawkeyes to find the endzone this time, as Tyler Goodson rushed in from 15 yards out to put his team up 14-0.

By the end of the quarter, Iowa had added a field goal to score 17 unanswered points to start the game.

“We knew it wasn’t over, we knew we had a lot of football left to go,” senior Peyton Ramsey said. “Offensively, we came out flat and we picked it up in the second quarter.

NU picked it up by working almost exclusively on the ground. Eleven of the Cats’ first 12 plays in the period were rushing attempts, with the final one being a 3-yard touchdown sweep from McGowan.

Another field goal from Keith Duncan extended the Hawkeye lead to 20-7, but momentum continued to swing NU’s way. Behind a heavy dose of Bowser, the Cats marched down the field again, with senior running back Jesse Brown topping off the drive with a one-yard touchdown run.

NU held onto the ball for over 10 minutes during the second quarter, running the ball 23 times for 102 yards while throwing it only three times. The wind, which was blowing at 20 miles per hour at the start of the game, was a huge reason why the Cats went with a heavy run attack, Fitzgerald said.

NU finished the game with 60 rushes compared to just 18 pass attempts. Bowser led the running back group with 25 carries and 85 yards.

After each team started the third quarter with a nothing-going drive, redshirt freshman safety Brandon Joseph stepped in front of a Petras pass and returned it back to the Iowa 35-yard line. The Cats continued their slow-burn running attack, and once again Brown ran it in from a yard away.

With about eight minutes remaining in the contest and his side up 21-20, Ramsey made an ill-advised throw on the run that fell into the arms of Iowa defensive back Jack Koerner, setting the Hawkeyes up at the Cats’ 36. But only three plays later on a third down, Joseph picked off Petras again, negating the Hawkeyes’ best field position since the first quarter.

“This is a mindset not just me but the whole DB group has.” Joseph said. “It’s a mindset that we have to get turnovers and we are going to do that every week.”

The Hawkeyes had two more drives after that to take the lead, but weren’t able to enter scoring range. On the first attempt, Iowa managed to cross midfield, but three straight Petras incompletions led to a turnover on downs. On the second, senior linebacker Blake Gallagher intercepted Petras with a minute remaining to ice the victory.

NU now sits tied with Purdue for first place in the Big Ten West, with preseason favorites Iowa and Minnesota both at 0-2 and Wisconsin not playing this week due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

In a non-coronavirus world, Kinnick Stadium would’ve been loud and rocking during those final drives of the game, and the Cats would have celebrated the win late into the Halloween night. But in today’s world, that’s just a figment of the imagination.

“When I was in college, Halloween was a pretty awesome night, especially after a road win,” Fitzgerald said. “I hope that awesome night means going home and going to bed.”

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