Saturday, August 16, 2008

The season that was, game 5: Indiana 38, Iowa 20.

IU managed to erase the disappointment of the Illinois loss by beating Iowa 38-20 on the road. Here's the short recap (I was out of town) and here's the box score. IU jumped out to a 21 point lead. IU's third touchdown of the game, memorably, was a 71 yard fumble return by Kellen Lewis that technically was credited as 71 yards of passing to himself (yeah, he got a penalty, and deservedly so, but it's a great picture--see above). Lewis finished 19-26 with 322 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Iowa scored a touchdown on the last play of the first half and then pulled to within 21-13 in the middle of the third quarter, but Josiah Sears scored with a minute left in the third quarter to make it 28-13, and Iowa never really threatened again. As I noted in my wrapup last year, IU gave up a ton of yards to a fairly weak Iowa offense, and couldn't do a thing on the ground, but still, this was only IU's second Big Ten road win since 2001. Even though Iowa was a mediocre team that squandered its bowl eligibility with a home game to Western Michigan in November, this win, in front of the usual 70,000 Hawkeye fans, was a big deal. IU hasn't had a three game winning streak against a Big Ten opponent since beating Iowa in 1998-2000, but IU will have that chance in October.

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