Iowa over Missouri in Insight Bowl: The Good, Bad, Ugly and Awesome

The Iowa Hawkeyes needed some late-game heroics by CB Micah Hyde to seal the deal against Missouri in the Insight Bowl.  Hyde’s fourth quarter, 72-yard interception return for a touchdown lifted the Hawkeyes over the Tigers 27-24.

Iowa started the game hot, taking a 17-3 lead midway through the second quarter.  A Michael Meyer 21-yard field goal pushed Iowa up 20-10 early in the third quarter and that was the last points the Hawkeyes would score until Hyde’s longest-yard-type return. 

In the meantime, Blaine Gabbert, T.J. Moe and Jerrell Jackson picked Iowa’s defense apart and brought the Tigers back from their early deficit.

It was so nearly a bad case of déjà vu.  Iowa squandered an early lead.  The defense looked gassed.  The yards were racking up for the opponent, and it looked like they would put the icing on the mud cake of Iowa’s season. 

But just when it started looking bleak, Norm Parker dialed up a rare Iowa blitz.  In an instant, something “felt” different.  There was fight and fire that had been missing during the last few games of the Iowa season. 

When Iowa got the ball back, with the lead and needing to only run out the clock, they didn’t collapse the way they had in the past.  They moved the ball just enough to keep the chains—and the clock—moving. 

And not to be outdone, Ken O’Keefe, on 3rd-and-short, called up a bootleg toss to Allen Reisner that garnered 39 yards and nearly another touchdown.  Only a kneel-down was needed to secure Iowa’s third consecutive bowl victory and send the team into the offseason on a positive note. 

That’s what happened in a nutshell, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.  There were some good things that happened, some bad things, some really ugly things and a few things that were really awesome.

The Good

The Offensive Line:  It could be argued that the performance of the O-line for Iowa was “awesome”.  They held against a Missouri team that led the Big 12 in sacks coming into the game with 37.

They also provided nice holes for Freshman RB Marcus Coker to run through, including an enormous gap that sprung Coker free for a 62-yard touchdown scamper in the second quarter.

Whether merely “good” or “awesome,” Iowa’s offensive line did their job well against a talented Missouri front and allowed Iowa’s offense to set the tone for an amazing performance by Coker.

The Coaching:  The end of the game, I would argue, was an “awesome” job by the coaches, but the rest of the game was merely “good.”  For the most part, the offense was the Marcus Coker show. 

There was very little in the way of surprises by Iowa’s offense, and the defense gave up the kind of yardage many Iowa fans predicted.  Once again, Iowa didn’t really change things up—at least, early on.

However, as things began to get really tight down the stretch, Iowa dialed up a very rare, but well-timed blitz, and offensively, they cracked out a very nice play-action pass to secure the win and almost made it look more lopsided than it was. 

Most importantly, none of the off-field issues that have beleaguered the Hawkeyes over the last month seemed to affect the way the team played this game.  For all of the negative comments fans (me especially) have heaped on the coaching staff this year, they did a very good job of getting the players focused for this performance and ready to perform.

Special Teams:  For all of the problems that this unit had earlier in the season, there was nothing at all to complain about in the Insight Bowl. 

Iowa’s kick returners averaged 29.5 yards-per-return while Missouri’s only averaged 16.4.  Iowa’s punt returners averaged 0.5 yards-per-return while Missouri’s averaged 2.0 (though that was on only one return). 

The kick coverage was there.

Michael Meyer went 2-for-2 in field goals, including one at a difficult angle.  He was also 3-for-3 in extra points.  When Iowa needed Meyer to come through, he did.

The Bad

Tackling:  It was almost embarrassing at times to watch Hawkeye defenders slipping and sliding off Missouri ball-handlers.  Normally, wrapping up tackles is a specialty of Norm Parker-coached teams. 

In this game, Iowa was hustling to the ball as they should but weren’t bringing carriers down the way they normally do.

Ricky Stanzi:  There was that gloriously beautiful 49-yard pass to Marvin McNutt in the Hawkeyes opening drive.  There was also that pretty little flick to Reisner at the end of the game to secure the win.

The rest of the game was merely “meh,” though.  Stanzi tossed up a couple of cherries for the Tigers to pick and looked a little rattled in the second half.

He finished the game 11-of-21 for 200 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions.  It just wasn’t a good day for a guy that boasted 25 touchdowns to only four interceptions during the regular season.

The Ugly

The Second Half:  There’s really no two ways about it—the second half of this game was largely U-G-L-Y. 

Iowa went into halftime with a precarious 17-10 lead but came out and put together a drive that resulted in a Michael Meyer field goal.  That was about it until very late in the game.

From that point onward, Iowa’s offense turned the ball over twice, punted once and spent most of the rest of the time on the bench. 

The defense—rightly so—started looking very winded.  From the 4:34 mark of the third quarter until the 2:15 mark of the fourth, Iowa ran 13 plays.  In that same time frame, Missouri ran approximately 28.

For everything that Iowa accomplished early in the first half, they turned around and handed it back in the second.  Only at the very end, when things were beginning to look dire, did Iowa come back to life and grab back the momentum and the lead.

It all may have ended well, but for more than a quarter in the second half, it was pretty ugly.

The Awesome

Marcus Coker:  Welcome to the big time, Mr. Marcus Coker!  With Adam Robinson suspended for unspecified reasons, Coker stepped into the starting position and promptly put up 219 yards on 33 carries with two touchdowns.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, on 33 carries, only one—ONE—carry resulted in negative yardage.  How many times have you ever seen a player carry the load that many times and not suffer a few setbacks?  Not Coker.  Not in this game.  He was as flawless as you could expect a player to be—let alone a freshman. 

What’s more, that play didn’t come until the fourth play of the opening drive to the fourth quarter! 

After that, he had one other carry that gained zero yards, but 31 times he touched the football, he got positive yardage. 

Micah Hyde:  He’d been beaten.  He’d been bruised.  But when Iowa needed something big to happen, Dr. Jekyll got nothing on Mr. Hyde. 

Against Michigan State, Tyler Sash intercepted a Kirk Cousins' pass and tossed it back to Hyde, who zigged and zagged his way to a touchdown.  This time, it was all Hyde. 

Stepping in front of an ill-advised Gabbert pass, Hyde did everything exactly the opposite of what my old high school coach taught.  He ran sideways.  He ran backwards.  He took the longest route possible to get where he was going.

But my coach never had a guy like Hyde on his team.  Hyde did everything “wrong” after picking off the pass, but his kind of wrong was Iowa’s kind of right.  Hyde ran a good 100 yards to complete a 72-yard interception return for a touchdown and lifted Iowa past Missouri.

Often, the difference between a “good team” and a “great team” are the guys who step up when needed.  Marcus Coker was one of those guys for Iowa and so too was Hyde.  That pick-six was nothing short of “awesome.”

Other

I have no category for this, but I have to mention:

The Officiating:  It wasn’t the worst job of officiating I’ve ever seen; so let’s not get too excited here.  For the most part, the calls were on-the-money, and the crew did a good job of going back and reviewing the more questionable plays.

However, there were some flaws as well, and at least one of them may have changed the outlook of the game.

As an Iowa fan, I’m not about to write the MAC and complain about that 4th-and-6 call that gave Iowa the ball back with 2:15 left on the clock.  Had T.J. Moe’s spectacular non-grab been left as originally called, it’s hard to speculate what ultimately might have happened. 

Missouri fans have a right to be slightly upset however.  Had that play stood as called (a catch), the Tigers well could have at least moved into field goal position and tied the game.  With that much time on the clock, they might have kept rolling right into the end zone and forced Iowa to put up a touchdown with little time left on the clock—a situation they’ve failed miserably at all year.

Was that pass really a catch as originally called?  I don’t think so.  I think he was still bobbling the ball as it hit the ground and therefore was incomplete.  I think, ultimately, the right call was made.

However, the rules state that the replay has to provide indisputable video evidence before a play can be overturned.  I don’t think the replay provided that.

From every angle shown on TV (which is supposedly the same thing the officials see), I couldn’t see definitively that Moe didn’t have control of the ball.  I didn’t see the ball clearly hit the ground before he had his hands wrapped firmly around it. 

I’m not paid to make that call and, as I said before, I’m not about to really complain about it.  If I were a Missouri fan though, I might be a little upset.

That call might have changed the game.  Missouri might have been robbed of a prime chance to pull out the win.

On the other hand, Micah Hyde might have intercepted another pass and taken it the other direction or Marcus Coker might have broken off another huge run to bring Iowa right back again.  Who knows?

It was worth a mention.

And On to Next Year

This win won’t erase all of the negatives that happened during (and after) the 2010 regular season.  It goes a long way, though.

We won’t soon forget “what could have been.”  We certainly won’t forget DJK’s and Robinson’s arrests nor Wegher and Hampton’s transfers.  We won’t forget the very narrow losses to Wisconsin and Ohio State that ruined any hopes of a conference championship.

Still, this was the kind of performance that reinvigorates the fan base.  This was the kind of performance—by underclassmen, especially—that gives us good reason to look ahead to next year with a little more hope than we came into the game with.

And that’s always “awesome.”