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Cats rally to squeak out 21-20 win at Iowa

Jesse Brown scored two touchdowns against Iowa.
Jesse Brown scored two touchdowns against Iowa. (Northwestern Athletics)

Northwestern’s backs were up against the wall to start the second quarter at Kinnick Stadium.

The Wildcats had fumbled the ball twice in the first 10:02, with both of them leading to Iowa touchdowns. They trailed 17-0 after one period. Their best wide receiver, Riley Lees, got hurt and would not return.

But the Cats got their feet back under them by going back to doing what they do best: pounding the ball on the ground. They picked off three passes, ran for three touchdowns and outscored Iowa 21-3 the rest of the way to pull off a 21-20 win.

Northwestern had to sweat it out late in the game, however, as Iowa got the ball twice in the last five minutes, trailing by a point. But Northwestern’s defense turned them away both times: once on downs in NU territory, and then again after Blake Gallagher picked off a Spencer Petras pass with just one minute left.

With Wisconsin idled by COVID-19 and Minnesota 0-2, the win put Northwestern in the driver’s seat in the Big Ten West after winning in perhaps the toughest place to play in the division. The Wildcats and Purdue are the only West teams that are 2-0.

Isaiah Bowser ran for 85 yards to lead Northwestern, while Jesse Brown ran for 21 yards and two TDs. Peyton Ramsey, playing on his 23rd birthday, completed 11 of 18 passes for 130 yards and one interception, and also ran for 26 more yards.

Petras went 26-for-50 for 216 yards and a touchdown for Iowa (0-2), but he threw those three interceptions. The Hawkeyes, who normally rely on their ground game, flipped the script and threw the ball more than twice as much as they ran it. They finished with 23 carries for just 77 yards.

The Wildcats, meanwhile, ran the ball on 60 of their 78 plays. They managed just 143 yards on those 60 rushes -- an average of just 2.4 yards per carry -- but it was enough to post the win over the 0-2 Hawkeyes.

It was a windy day in Iowa City, and the gusts helped create the first big play of the game, early in the first quarter, after both teams went three-and-out once.

Kyric McGowan muffed a drifting 50-yard Tory Taylor punt and Terry Roberts recovered it at the NU 7-yard line to set Iowa up at the Wildcats' doorstep. On the next snap, Petras threw a perfect fade to a twisting, leaping Brandon Smith for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Cam Ruiz had tight coverage on the play, but it was a perfect throw and a better catch from the 6-foot-2 Smith.

The second Wildcat fumble came on the very next possession when Bowser coughed it up at the NU 45 after taking a hit from Zach VanValkenburg, who also recovered the fumble. Iowa wasted no time turning the second miscue into a second TD. Petras hit Ihmir Smith-Marsette for 20 yards, NU was flagged for an offsides penalty and then two straight Tyler Goodson runs covered the final 20 yards for the score.

After another Northwestern three-and-out, Iowa mounted a 61-yard drive to the NU 3-yard line, where they faced a third-and-2. Tight end Shaun Beyer was as open as you can get in an end zone, but Petras missed him because Tommy Adebawore pressured him outside of the pocket. It turned out to be a four-point quarterback hurry because Keith Duncan was forced to kick 22-yard field goal to push the lead to 17-0.

The Cats were reeling at that point, down three scores. And that’s when the running game took over and Northwestern embarked on two long touchdown drives that changed the complexion of the game.

The first drive was a 16-play, 75-yarder where all but two of the plays and 12 of the yards were on running plays. The biggest runs were a 21-yard scramble by Ramsey, a five-yard dash by Jesse Brown on fourth-and-1, and the finale, a McGowan 3-yard TD on a jet sweep.

Iowa answered with a 47-yard Duncan field goal after converting a fourth-down of their own, but the Wildcats came right back with another long march for a score. This one went 79 yards on 14 plays, 12 of them runs. Ramsey, Bowser and Andrew Marty all took snaps at quarterback on the drive.

The biggest play of the possession was a pass: a 12-yard bullet from Ramsey to McGowan on fourth-and-3. Brown scored on a one-yard run when he followed defensive tackle-turned-goal-line fullback Joe Spivak into the end zone.

The Wildcats had fought back from a 17-0 deficit to go into the locker room at halftime trailing 20-14. They ran 41 plays in the half and 34 of them were runs.

The third quarter turned into an old-fashioned tug of war, but the Wildcats’ defense came up with the big play that swung the momentum when Brandon Joseph picked off a Petras pass in Iowa territory and returned it to the 35-yard line. It took NU eight plays, seven of them runs, with the last one resulting in a second Brown touchdown to give the Wildcats their first lead of the game, 21-20, with 6:05 left in the third quarter.

It would turn out to be the last score of the game. The teams traded possessions before Ramsey made the next big mistake. Flushed from the pocket and running toward the sideline, he tried to force a ball into the boundary and Jack Koerner intercepted the pass and returned it to the NU 35.

But Joseph bailed his quarterback out three plays later when he corralled a deflected pass at the NU 18-yard line for his second pick of the day with 6:49 left in the final quarter. Bullet dodged.

The Wildcats converted just one first down and had to punt it back to the Hawkeyes with 4:45 left. The Hawkeyes converted a fourth-and-1 at their own 22 and reached Northwestern territory. But there, the Wildcat defense again rose up, as Petras fired three straight incompletions, the last one on fourth-and-5, and the Wildcats took over at their own 46.

Northwestern’s offense had a chance to close out the game with a first down but was forced to punt the ball back to Iowa, which took over with 1:29 left and no timeouts. On the third play of the possession, Gallagher picked off Petras at the Iowa 38 and the Wildcats went into victory formation to close out the win.

Head coach Pat Fitzgerald is now 6-3 in his career at Kinnick Stadium.

The Wildcats next Saturday host Nebraska (0-1), whose game against Wisconsin was canceled due to a Badgers’ COVID-19 outbreak.

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