Iowa football: Top three performances from Week 3 against the Panthers

Mekhi Sargent

Sargent has been getting a lot of love from the Dear Old Gold crew the last week. Last week we discussed his impact on the Iowa football program after spending a year as a Reiver. We also had an earlier article this morning about Kirk Ferentz gushing over the talent and character of the sophomore back.

This is all for good reason. Sargent has come out of nowhere to the casual spectator to put himself in line for a lot of carries this season. Against Northern Illinois, Sargent finished second on the team in carries as he did against ISU last week when Toren Young started in place of Ivory Kelly-Martin.

This week, he led the team in carries and had himself quite a game. He received the most carries in his Hawkeye career with 15 carries and he turned that into 72 yards and two touchdowns. He also accumulated 48 receiving yards on just one catch. He truly was dynamic on offense Saturday.

It also just wasn’t in the stat line, but how he gathered some of those yards by being patient, waiting for holes to create, and carefully maneuvering along the sidelines for as long as he could for as many yards as possible.

Through three games, Sargent leads the team in rushing touchdowns, and he is starting to build quite a following of Hawkeye fans falling in love with the rusher formerly from Florida.

Sargent isn’t the only back that did well Saturday. Toren Young also added 82 yards on 14 carries.

In most weeks, we typically do an honorable mention slide where we name a few others that were outstanding. To be honest, the list is too long this week. Although there were a few mental mistakes early and a few general play issues, the Hawkeyes finally put together a complete game on both sides of the ball.

Hopefully, with a big game next week against Wisconsin, the Iowa football program can build off this outstanding performance led by these three key contributors.