By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – This was Kirk Ferentz football at its finest.

Dominate the line of scrimmage.

Establish balance on offense.

Dominate on special teams.

And win the turnover battle.

The Iowa football team accomplished all of those things in spectacular, and sometimes in stunning fashion, while destroying  Minnesota 41-3 on Saturday at Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa scored touchdowns in the first half via a pass play, a running play, a 34-yard pick-six by defensive back Zach Lutmer and a 50-yard punt return by Kaden Wetjen.

The game was pretty much decided by halftime as Iowa led 31-0 at the break.

Minnesota was held to a minus-9 rushing yards in the first half, while Iowa rushed for 84 yards and passed for 102 yards in the first half.

The Gophers finished the game with just 133 yards, including 24 on the ground.

Both teams entered Saturday’s border battle with identical records of 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten play.

But that’s where the similarities stopped as Minnesota had no answer for Iowa on offense, defense or special teams.

“It was a great overall team win today,” said Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski. “We really wanted to get after them. We were talking, it didn’t have to be close today.

“We felt confident coming into this game. But obviously we scored on defense, we scored on special teams, we scored on offense. So that’s just great complementary football that we’ve been playing a lot recently. And for it to happen in a rivalry game like this, it’s just a great feeling.”

This game was vastly different from the last time Minnesota played at Kinnick Stadium in 2023 and escaped with a controversial 12-10 victory.

In that game, former Iowa defensive back Cooper DeJean had a 54-yard punt return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter erased by an invalid fair catch.

Three plays later, Minnesota intercepted a pass thrown by former Iowa quarterback Deacon Hill to secure the win.

In Saturday’s game, Iowa pounced on the Gophers and never let up.

This was the same Minnesota team that had nine sacks in a 24-6 victory over Nebraska last Saturday in Minneapolis.

Against Iowa on Saturday, though, the Gophers seemed almost helpless on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

If one of Iowa’s goal was to make sure that the officials would have no impact on the outcome of Saturday’s game, it was mission accomplished.

Iowa took the opening kick and marched 75 yards for a touchdown on nine plays.

That drive was a sign of things to come in a game that never was competitive.

“That was huge,” Wetjen said of the opening drive. “We always emphasize playing with the lead. And when you go down on the first drive and score you’ve already got a lead. We kind of fed off that, defense, offense, special teams. Everybody was just really moving today. I’m looking forward to the next couple weeks because we keep building.”

Wetjen, a former walk-on from Williamsburg, has now tied Hawkeye legend Tim Dwight with five touchdown returns on special teams.

“Just the way everything fed off each other was really quite pleasing,” Kirk Ferentz said. “I just want to congratulate Kaden, too. I understand he’s tied Tim Dwight for return touchdowns, which is saying a lot. Just a great accomplishment.”

Iowa now enters the second of two bye weeks this season and will return to action against Oregon on Nov. 8 at Kinnick Stadium.

The Hawkeyes have certainly given Oregon something to think about with how they dismantled what is considered a pretty good Minnesota squad.

Iowa has now won three straight games, but Saturday’s victory was its first against a team with a winning record.

Iowa also has won 10 of the last 11 games against the Gophers as Kirk Ferentz continues to have his way against Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck.

Minnesota redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Lindsey faced Iowa for the first time on Saturday and to say that he struggled would be and understatement. Lindsey three three interceptions and only passed for 109 yard.

“We know things are going to happen like this, especially with playing a young quarterback,” Fleck said. “It’s not all on him. It starts with me. I make every decision in this organization.

“But I know there’s going to be some really good times and some really hard times. We’re going to all have to learn from that together.”

Minnesota avoided a shutout by making a 33-yard field goal near the very end of the third quarter.

Instead of going for it on fourth down, Fleck chose to kick a field goal apparently to avoid the embarrassment of being shutout by a long-standing Big Ten border rival.

With victory well in hand, Kirk Ferentz turned somewhat conservative on offense in the second half as Iowa only scored one touchdown after halftime.

It came on a 6-yard run by backup quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski with 5 minutes, 30 seconds left to play. It was Hecklinski’s first touchdown as a Hawkeye.

Gronowski completed 12 of 19 passes for 135 yards and one touchdown. He also scored his 11th rushing touchdown this season..

When Saturday’s game ended, the Iowa players rushed to the back of the north end zone to grab Floyd of Rosedale, the statue of a pig that goes to the winner of this rivalry.

Floyd has spent most of the past decade in Iowa City, and it became abundantly clear early in Saturday’s game that he would be staying there.

Former Iowa defensive back John Nestor started at cornerback for the Gophers on Saturday, but he was helped off the field in the second half with an apparent lower leg injury and didn’t return to the game.

Once the game ended, several of Nestor’s former Iowa teammates met with him briefly on the field.

 

Minnesota 0 0 3 0 – 3

Iowa 17 14 3 7 – 41

I – Mark Gronowski 2 run (Drew Stevens kick)

I – Stevens 34 FG

I – Zach Lutmer 34 interception return (Stevens kick)

I – Reece Vander Zee 29 pass from Gronowski (Stevens kick)

I – Kaden Wetjen 50 punt return (Stevens kick)

I – Stevens 46 FG

M – Brady Denaburg 33 FG

I – Jeremy Hecklinski 6 run (Stevens kick)