Iowa football: Top three performances from close Outback Bowl victory
By Andrew Wade
It’s been three days since the Iowa football team’s big win over Mississippi State in the Outback Bowl. Here are the three top performances from that game.
Coming into this game, I fully expected this to be a defensive slugfest, a very low scoring defensive slugfest. Both teams were in the top ten in the nation and both offenses struggled at times to operate at a high level. The Iowa football team, however, surprised me with their performance Tuesday afternoon in the 2019 Outback Bowl and showed a level of grit and toughness that we didn’t see in some of their close losses this season.
Offensively, the Iowa football team scored 27 points, which is the second highest point total the Bulldogs have allowed this season (they allowed 28 to Kentucky), and despite being unable to run the ball at all, they managed to win the game through the air against one of the best defensive backfield in the nation.
Defensively, the Iowa football team executed the bend-but-don’t-break defense to perfection, slowing down Nick Fitzgerald’s dangerous RPO plays and forcing him to throw the ball (with little luck). They also had their fair share of big plays to shift the game in Iowa’s favor.
The Hawks even survived and prevailed to an extent past two mistakes in the third quarter that caused a complete momentum shift. I’ll be honest, my first thought was “here we go again”.
Although this was truly a team performance, I want to take the time to call out three specific performances that changed the dynamic of this game and led the Iowa football team to a 2019 Outback Bowl victory.