Saturday's Big Ten: Second-half safeties help Iowa squeeze past South Dakota State
Iowa City, Iowa — Iowa’s defense came up with two second-half safeties, and the Hawkeyes opened the season with a 7-3 win over South Dakota State on Saturday.
Neither team could do much offensively. Iowa finished with 166 yards of offense, while South Dakota State had 120. The two teams combined for more punts (21) than first downs (16).
“Obviously a very unusual scoring line,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “You’ve got 3 (in the first quarter), 2 (in the third quarter), 2 in the fourth. I’ve never been around a game like that. But we’ll take it today.”
Iowa ranked seventh nationally with four defensive touchdowns last season, so the Hawkeyes are used to getting points from that side of the ball. And they needed them on a day when the offense struggled.
“The standard’s been set,” said linebacker Jack Campbell, who recorded one of the safeties and finished with 12 tackles.
The first safety came after Iowa’s Tory Taylor had his punt downed at the South Dakota State 1-yard line in the third quarter. One play later, Campbell grabbed running back Isaiah Davis after he took the handoff and brought him down one yard short of getting out of the end zone.
The second safety came in the fourth, when Iowa’s Joe Evans sacked quarterback Mark Gronowski in the end zone on a second-and-11 play.
“We’re trying to score as much as we can on the defensive side, however we can do it” said Iowa safety Quinn Schulte.
The Hawkeyes kept South Dakota State pinned in its own territory for most of the game. Ten of Taylor’s punts were downed inside the Jackrabbits’ 20-yard line, including one at the 2 and the one at the 1.
“Tory did a great job,” Ferentz said. “I don’t think if I’ve ever seen a punter so involved in a game either.”
Taylor averaged 47.9 yards per punt.
“Field position was really tough for us,” South Dakota State coach John Stiegelmeier said. “It’s tough to go out there and mentally think we’ve got to go 98 yards against this defense.”
Iowa took a 3-0 lead in the first quarter on Aaron Blom’s 46-yard field goal. The only points for South Dakota State came on Hunter Dustman’s 44-yard field goal with 20 seconds left before halftime.
Iowa quarterback Spencer Petras completed 11 of 25 passes for 109 yards. Leshon Williams had 72 rushing yards.
Gronowski was 10 of 26 passing for 87 yards. Davis had 18 carries for 50 yards.
More Big Ten
►No. 18 Wisconsin 38, Illinois State 0: Braelon Allen had a 96-yard touchdown scamper for the longest run from scrimmage in Wisconsin history and John Torchio had a school-record 100-yard interception return as the Badgers opened the season with a rout of Illinois State.
Wisconsin’s longest run from scrimmage before Allen’s was James White’s 93-yard burst in a 51-3 triumph over Indiana in 2013. Torchio broke the record previously held by Joe Ferguson, who scored on a 99-yard interception return in a 59-10 victory over Utah State in 2017.
Allen ended up with 148 yards and two touchdowns — including a 1-yard score on fourth-and-goal in the third quarter — on 14 carries.
► Rutgers 22, (at) Boston College 21: Al-Shadee Salaam scored on a 22-yard run with 2:43 to play, lifting Rutgers to a comeback victory in the schools’ season openers.
Rutgers had lost the last 11 meetings against Boston College.
Phil Jurkovec threw two of his three touchdown passes to Zay Flowers as Boston College opened a 21-12 lead midway through the third quarter before the Scarlet Knights rallied.
Aron Cruickshank had a 26-yard TD run and Kyle Monangai a 1-yarder for Rutgers.
The Scarlet Knights got the ball at their own 4 with just under 8 minutes left and used 12 plays — 11 rushes — to grab the lead on Salaam’s TD when he busted through the line and into the left corner of the end zone.
► (At) Maryland 31, Buffalo 10: Roman Hemby ran for 114 yards and two touchdowns, including a 70-yard sprint in the first minute of the second half that helped Maryland pull away.
On an otherwise uneven day for the Maryland offense, Hemby breezed through a gaping hole and raced untouched to the end zone for the team’s longest run since 2019. That gave the Terrapins a 24-7 advantage after 39 seconds in the third quarter.
Antwaine Littleton also ran for two touchdowns for Maryland (1-0), and Taulia Tagovailoa threw for 290 yards.
Buffalo (0-1) was outgained 446-268 and scored its lone TD on a 19-yard run by Al-Jay Henderson.
Hemby, a redshirt freshman who had 17 rushing attempts last season, made the most of his seven carries in this year’s opener. He scored on a 33-yard run in the first quarter, and then Littleton added a 2-yard touchdown in the second.
► (At) Nebraska 38, North Dakota 17: Anthony Grant ran for 189 yards and two touchdowns, with the second one breaking a tie late in the third quarter and helping Nebraska go on to victory.
The Cornhuskers (1-1) bounced back from their loss to Northwestern in Ireland last week and ended a seven-game losing streak with their first win since Oct. 2.
Nebraska scored on its opening possession for a second straight week but not again until the third quarter. Boos rained down on the Huskers as they jogged to the locker room at half tied at 7 with their opponent from the Football Championship Subdivision.
The Huskers were up 17-7 in the middle of the third after Casey Thompson’s 19-yard pass to Nate Boerkircher and Timmy Bleekrode’s 46-yard field goal, but the Fighting Hawks (0-1) scored twice in just under four minutes to tie it again.
Thompson then drove the Huskers 75 yards in five plays, with Grant breaking a 46-yard run to give them the lead for good. The Huskers scored two touchdowns in the last six minutes to put away the Hawks