Hawkeyes roll despite rain, early miscues

By Brian Heinemann

For The Herald

IOWA CITY ----- A better team would have made the Iowa Hawkeyes pay for a slew of first-half mistakes. Luckily for Iowa, Tennessee Tech wasn’t that team Saturday.

While the rain poured incessantly, the Hawkeyes kept putting the ball on the ground. Dropped passes were one thing – Iowa had plenty of those. Fumbles were quite another.

Marcus Coker had two fumbles on his first four carries. Micah Hyde put the ball on the ground on a punt return but was mercifully called down by contact. De'Andre Johnson fumbled the ball out of bounds late in the game.

“I hope it wasn’t nerves,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “I think I saw the ball on the ground three times in the first half. We came back and put it on the ground again in the second half. We’re not going to win football games like that. At the end of the day, that’s going to get us beat.

“We’re not a good enough team where we’re going to be able to give up any quarter at all.”

Tight end Zach Derby, with a chance to make his first career touchdown grab, dropped a pass in the end zone on a third down play that was a continuation of Coker’s rough day, as the sophomore slammed into his own quarterback after the snap.

Yet Iowa rolled to a 27-0 halftime lead en route to a 34-7 win at Kinnick Stadium. The result is what they wanted. The way they got there? Not so much.

None of the early miscues were where the real damage came from, though. The real damage came when true freshman Mika’il McCall, who rushed for 61 yards on nine carries after replacing Coker, left the field on crutches with an ankle injury.

“Unfortunately, he’s got a break,” Ferentz said. “It’s going to cost him the year. We’re all disappointed. Nobody’s more disappointed than him.”

And thus the running back woes of recent years continue at Iowa.

But all was not lost. Far from it. When you win by 27 points, something clearly went right. The defense was tremendous, shutting down what was supposed to be a high-powered, fast-paced Tennessee Tech offense. Iowa benefited from several huge plays as well, with a Shaun Prater 89-yard pick-six and a Marvin McNutt 88-yard touchdown reception.

The defensive performance bodes well for Iowa, who will see similar offenses to that of the Golden Eagles over the next several weeks at Iowa State and home against Pittsburgh. Linebacker James Morris picked up his first career interception, defensive tackle Mike Daniels wreaked some havoc in the backfield, and the defense stymied Tech throughout the first three quarters before giving way to the backups.

“We worked hard in practice, we did a lot of no-huddle type drills,” Hyde said. “I think it really prepared us for this game and the upcoming games. We’re running around and we’re more conditioned.”

There’s plenty of room for improvement on both sides of the ball, but none as critical as at the running back position. Coker has to improve, and fast. He finished with 11 carries for 41 yards and two fumbles, not exactly the shimmering stat line many expected to see following his huge performance in the Insight Bowl.

Those numbers aren’t going to be good enough for the Hawkeyes’ feature back. Not in the Big Ten.

“I told him, live to see another day,” McNutt, who finished with six catches for 140 yards and two touchdowns, said. “Keep your head up, because there’s still a lot of season left. Let it go, because next week’s another game, another opportunity to step on the field.”

Iowa won’t face a defense as porous as Tech’s was again this season, and the fact that Coker couldn’t get going on Saturday has to be a concern moving forward. Holding on to the ball would help, too.

Coker refused to blame the weather. Nor would he blame the fact that he hasn’t really been hit since the Insight Bowl win over Missouri eight months ago. He knows he needs to get out of his own head and

not focus too much on the fumbles, not get hesitant.

He knows he needs to get better.

“It’s something that just has to motivate you for the next week,” Coker said of the fumbles. “Holding on to the ball is my job. I didn’t do my job.”

The fumbles, the miscues, the dropped passes; even a lightning delay of 84 minutes couldn’t keep the Hawkeyes from rolling. James Vandenberg had a successful start to his first season as a full-time starter, completing 13 of 21 passes for 219 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions.

For the most part, Iowa succeeded in doing what they needed to do against Tech. They got significant playing time for many backups and seven true freshmen, and, aside from the McCall injury, escaped fairly healthy despite the sloppy conditions.

“It’s the first step of many,” Vandenberg said. “We have to keep pushing forward.”