Michigan State Aftermath

Well the Hawks did it again. By no means did they dominate any facet of the game, but they played well enough to win the game.


Offense-


Thought that for the most part they looked bad on the offensive side of the ball. The running game seemed to gain some yards when they ran to the offensive left behind Bulaga and Reiff. In the third quarter, Iowa had first and goal at the 1 and were unable to punch it in. My question is, where was Wegher? Has he not proven that he is pretty good at the goalline dive? All it took however was the last drive for Iowa to start playing offense. With 1:37 left the Hawks had the daunting task of going 70 yards with only 1 timeout and having to get a touchdown to win. Stanzi looked like John Elway on "the drive," he was making most of the calls from the line of scrimmage and hitting his recievers when they were open and when nobody was open, instead of taking a sack or throwing one up, he ran and got what he could. With two seconds left O'Keefe dialed up a great play call. When Moeaki went in motion and the linebacker went with him and left McNutt one on one on the outside. Upon seeing this and knowing what the play call was, Stanzi had to be thinking, "Is this really happening?" In watching the play several times, both McNutt and Stross were open on the slant patterns. Stanzi chose to hit McNutt and the cardiac kids did it once again. The win did not come without some losses though, Dace Richardson went down early with an ankle injury, Colin Sandeman went down in the third after being the victim of a head to head hit, and Adam Robinson injured his ankle.



Defense-

While they only allowed 13 points, the defense really missed a lot of oppertunities to make big plays. Hunter dropped a probable pick 6 interception, Clayborn somehow missed a fumble recovery deep in Spartan territory, and they allowed a couple 3 down and more than 10 yard conversions. It was a little bit concerning that MSU went 90+ plus yards to get the lead. For the first game this season Iowa was unable to cause a turnover. Overall it was a pretty good game by the defense including a goal line stand when MSU had a first and goal at the 1.