The Iowa football program took down the Minnesota Gophers Saturday. Today, the Big Ten recognized two Hawks for their outstanding performances in the game.
The Iowa football team walked into TCF Bank Stadium Saturday afternoon ready to face off against the Gophers. A few hours later, the Hawks walked away victorious and carrying the big bronze pig known as the Floyd of Rosedale. Two days later, two Iowa football players have been recognized by the Big Ten for their outstanding performance in Saturday’s win.
Redshirt junior defensive end Anthony Nelson received Big Ten Defense Player of the Week honors after his dominating three sack performance against Minnesota. Nelson is the second Hawkeye to win the honor in six weeks. AJ Epenesa took home the weekly honor after the Iowa State win.
It is no surprise to see Nelson make this list after his game. As we noted in our article highlighting the standout performances from the Minnesota game, only nine players in all of the Big Ten have more sacks on the season than Nelson did in one half.
Nelson finished the game with three sacks, four quarterback hurries, and one quarterback hit on 39 pass rush snaps.
With 3.0 sacks against Minnesota, @HawkeyeFootball DE Anthony Nelson is the #B1GFootball Defensive Player of the Week. https://t.co/Yl6Ky6dCao pic.twitter.com/o1bbOeEGD3
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) October 8, 2018
With these type of performances, the redshirt junior from Urbandale, Iowa is quickly moving up draft boards despite having another year of eligibility left. Nelson is currently listed on Joe Marino and Kyle Crabb’s top-75 big board on The Draft Network.
The bigger surprise of today’s announcements was freshman Riley Moss being named Big Ten Freshman of the Week after his two interception performance Saturday. The contest against Minnesota was Moss’ first extended game action and his first start for the Iowa football team.
Despite struggling early on as it appeared the Gophers were deliberately attacking Moss in the passing game, he cleaned up his game and stepped up huge for the Iowa football program.
The #B1GFootball Freshman of the Week is @HawkeyeFootball DB Riley Moss, who had 2 INTs against Minnesota. https://t.co/Yl6Ky6dCao pic.twitter.com/uExFXCPJrs
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) October 8, 2018
In addition to Moss’ two interceptions, he also added five tackles to his stat line. Pretty good for a former two-star recruit out of Ankeny, Iowa who was filling in for the injured Michael Ojemudia and Matt Hankins.
While we can’t expect this type of performance in every outing, it’s definitely a great example of things to come for the Iowa football program considering Moss’ running mate on the other side, Julius Brents, also turned in an outstanding performance in his first start at corner.
Congratulations to both Anthony Nelson and Riley Moss!