Iowa football escapes with a win over Penn State
Iowa football escapes with a win over Penn State
IOWA CITY — For all the talk about motivation, this ultimately became another hard-hitting Iowa-Penn State football classic, with both sides desperately fighting for the win.
The Nittany Lions may have been limping into Kinnick Stadium without their fired head coach after a disappointing Big Ten Conference start, but a series of self-inflicted Iowa mistakes gave the visitors plenty of life for four quarters of football at Kinnick Stadium on Oct. 18.
And like in a classic fistfight, both teams traded punches throughout a dramatic fourth quarter.
And Xavier Nwankpa and the gassed Phil Parker defense delivered the knockout blow, sending the Hawkeyes to a stirring 25-24 win before 69,250 striped-out fans.
Iowa’s Koen Entringer delivered the first key shot to keep the Hawkeyes in it, a third-and-goal sack of Ethan Grunkemeyer to keep Penn State out of the end zone in the final five minutes that forced a field goal and kept Iowa within five, 24-19.
Then came the big 1-2 punch from Iowa’s running game – without the use of a running back. Quarterback Mark Gronowski’s keeper up the middle turned into a stunning 67-yard scamper, all the way to Penn State’s 8-yard line. From there, an end-around to Kaden Wetjen got into the end zone, a two-play, big-play response from Iowa’s offense to take a 25-24 lead with 3:54 remaining.
But the two-point play failed, leaving Penn State just a nice drive and a field goal away from winning.
Iowa forced a fourth-and-4, with Penn State on its own 49 with 1:22 left. This was the biggest play of the game, and Parker sent an all-out blitz against a first-time Penn State quarterback. Nwankpa soared through the line untouched, foiling whatever the Nittany Lions had cooking, and Ethan Grunkemeyer’s desperate throw fell incomplete with 1:14 remaining.
Iowa nursed the clock from there, with Gronowski fittingly running a bootleg keeper around left end for 14 yards on third-and-6 to get the clinching first down with under a minute to go. That sent the Hawkeyes to an improbable 5-2 record (3-1 in the Big Ten) while Penn State, predicted by many as a preseason national champion, dropped its fourth in a row to fall to 3-4, 0-4.
What a game for Gronowski, the South Dakota State transfer who improved to 54-8 as a college starter. He passed for only 68 yards but rushed nine times for a career-high 130 yards and two scores. Kamari Moulton added 99 yards on the ground as the Hawkeyes rushed for 245 overall against Penn State.
This one can easily be added to the list of Iowa-Penn State brawls in the Kirk Ferentz era, including here in 2017 (a 21-19 Penn State win on the final play) and here in 2021 (23-20 Iowa win on the Spencer Petras bomb to Nico Ragaini).
There have been multiple overtime wins by Iowa in Happy Valley (2000, 2002) and a 6-4 win (2004). Penn State also won a zany 30-24 thriller in 2018 in which Nate Stanley threw an end-zone interception on first-and-goal in the final minutes.
Revisiting the unfortunate events to finish the first half
There are so many “ifs” in every game of football, but the end of the first half was undoubtedly loaded with them for Iowa.
Let’s go in reverse by starting with the conclusion, a shocking blocked field-goal return touchdown on the final play by Penn State’s Elliot Washington II, who scooped the blocked Drew Stevens 66-yard attempt and easily scored to give the Nittany Lions a 14-10 lead.
“If” No. 1: What if Kirk Ferentz hadn’t tried the field goal? Then Iowa goes into halftime with a 10-7 lead. Stevens’ first attempt at a Big Ten-record 66-yarder was well short as Penn State called timeout. Ferentz tried anyway. Stevens does have the leg for it, and remember there was hand-wringing a year ago when Cade McNamara threw a woefully short Hail Mary against Iowa State instead of Stevens trying a 66-yarder to win it on the last play of a 20-19 loss. But there were a lot of observers wondering why the risk-averse head coach even took the risk?
“If” No. 2: What if Iowa had run a smarter play before the field goal? With 10 seconds left and no timeouts from the Penn State 48, Iowa was facing a second-and-2, and the Nittany Lions were obviously playing for a pass. I would’ve liked to have seen a straight-ahead run — maybe even a quarterback sneak or draw — to get the first down, which would’ve stopped the clock with probably 4-5 seconds left. That would’ve offered plenty of time for a spike, and THEN Stevens could’ve tried a much more manageable kick with about 2 seconds left. He had been 4-for-4 on kicks of 50-plus this season (55, 54, 54, 54). Instead, Iowa tried a no-chance out pass and then lined up Stevens for the 66-yarder with 6 seconds on the clock.
“If” No. 3: What if Iowa had just let Penn State run out the clock on the other end? The Nittany Lions got the ball back after Iowa had taken a 10-7 lead with 1:14 left and ran a basic run for 1 yard. Iowa called timeout, rather than letting Penn State take the clock down. That ended up working out for the Hawkeyes, who forced an out-of-bounds run then an incompletion and forced a punt, which gave Iowa the ball at its own 25 with 47 seconds left. But with all the momentum after a rough start (more on that later), the Hawkeyes easily could’ve justified riding the Kinnick crowd into halftime with a 10-7 advantage.
On the failed kick itself, Penn State was smart in sending Washington off the edge to go behind the kick in case it was blocked. He didn’t try for the block, he was only going for the big play. Often, long kicks need to take a low trajectory, and this one was low and blocked, and bounced neatly into Washington’s hands. That was a wise special-teams gamble by the Nittany Lions.
‘Doughboyz’ return with a two-INT second quarter
Iowa went the first 15 quarters of this season without forcing an interception. During that stretch, the “Doughboyz” in Iowa’s secondary were dubbed the “Noboyz” by assistant defensive coordinator Seth Wallace as a motivational tactic.
Even through six games, Iowa defensive tackles had more interceptions this season (2) than Iowa’s defensive backs (1, by Zach Lutmer against Indiana).
But in the second quarter against new Penn State starter Ethan Grunkemeyer, Deshaun Lee got a toe-tap interception at Iowa’s 4-yard line, and then Xavier Nwankpa logged the biggie.
Nwankpa hauled in a tipped third-down pass late in the second quarter, getting the ball in his hands with room to run for the first time since scoring as a true freshman in the 2022 Music City Bowl. Nwankpa raced up the left sideline and was final tackled at the 1-yard line, setting up a quarterback-sneak touchdown from Mark Gronowski for a 10-7 Hawkeyes lead.
Nwankpa’s pick was a special one, considering the five-star safety out of Southeast Polk hadn’t had one since Week 1 of 2023. In fact, Nwankpa had two interceptions in his first two career starts. Then he had zero over the next 29 starts of his career until Saturday.
Nwankpa had maybe his best game as a Hawkeye, later crunching backup quarterback Jaxon Smolik (a former Dowling Catholic star) on a fourth-quarter keeper that jarred the ball loose. But Penn State was able to pounce on the loose ball.
Normally reliable Hawkeye veterans make unforced errors
Kirk Ferentz says it all the time: His best players need to play their best for Iowa to have a good team, a good season.
Saturday’s first quarter was marred with reliable Iowa players making unforced errors.
Jacob Gill, on the third snap of the game, had a third-down pass hit him on the No. 5 on his black jersey and carom into the air for a Zion Tracy interception at Iowa’s 35 with 14:11 left in the first quarter.
Koen Entringer, a captain, lined up clearly offsides by a good half-yard on Penn State’s fourth-and-goal try from the Iowa 1. The Hawkeyes stuffed the play and would’ve gotten off the field, with Entringer’s miscue not really factoring into the action. But Penn State got another try and punched it home for a Kaytron Allen touchdown and 7-0 lead with 8:45 left.
Mark Gronowski, another captain, overcooked a few potential big throws on Iowa’s next two drives. An end-zone try to Reece Vander Zee never had a chance, soaring out of bounds. Iowa settled for a field goal. On the next drive, Sam Phillips was open for a 20-plus yard connection but was way overthrown. This time a field-goal try was no good.
Drew Stevens, who earlier made the 39-yard field goal, had a straight-on 46-yarder with a chance to cut it to 7-6 but missed wide right. That’s four misses for Stevens this season after he missed only three all last year on 23 attempts.
Iowa closed the first quarter trailing, 7-3, and had only itself to blame.
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 31 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on X.
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