Iowa football: Three Hawks who deserve game balls in Maryland shutout

Despite heavy winds, the Iowa football team was able to change on the fly in their shutout win over Maryland. Here are the three guys who earned game balls.

Over the last few weeks, we have really seen the Iowa football team’s offense come alive with the help of junior quarterback Nate Stanley’s right arm. In lighting up the passing attack, the Hawks were able to put scores on the scoreboard that aren’t typically seen by a Kirk Ferentz-led team. Saturday, however, the Iowa football team had no problems reversing the clock back a few years and playing old school football in route to the 23-0 win over Maryland.

Although high-scoring offenses are fun to watch, it was actually quite beautiful to watch Iowa’s defense suffocate Maryland’s strong offense. It also gave us a good glimpse as to what this Iowa football team brings to the table. They have the ability to win in each phase of the game so if weather is a factor or one unit is struggling, the others can pick up the slack.

Saturday morning in Kinnick, it was traditional Iowa football being played with the Hawkeyes rushing a season-high 52 times and Kirk relying on his stronger than usual defense to stop the Terrapins rushing attack in its tracks.

So in a complete 180 from last week where we handed out three offensive game balls, this week we will be handing out three game balls to the defense and special teams units. Here  is who we think deserves our three game balls from Saturday.