By Hawk Fanatic

MINNEAPOLIS – An all-too familiar script played out for the Iowa football team on Saturday against Minnesota, but this time it proved costly.

The Iowa defense played at an exceptionally high level pretty much from start to finish, while the Iowa offense sputtered, gaining just 288 yards and committing four turnovers in the 13-10 loss at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Iowa has won many games before under veteran head coach Kirk Ferentz when the offense does very little because the Phil Parker-led defense has usually been there to pick up the slack, along with special teams.

The defense held Minnesota to just 209 yards, and to 2-of-15 on third-down plays, but it still wasn’t enough.

Iowa’s performance on special teams was also a mixed bag as a blocked punt led to Minnesota’s first points in the game on a field goal early in the first quarter.

But this loss was mostly due to Iowa’s sloppy and ineffective offense.

Third-year quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski made his second career start, but he was benched in the second quarter as the offense continually misfired.

Hank Brown was inserted for Hecklinski, but the switch had little impact until late in the fourth quarter when the offense finally delivered as wide receiver Tony Diaz, after catching a short pass from Brown near the line of scrimmage, broke loose for a 57-yard gain to the Gopher 15.

Brown then connected with Reece Vander Zee for a 37-yard touchdown pass with 3 minutes, 51 seconds left to play, capping a 98-yard scoring drive on just four plays and evening the score at 10-10.

But then Minnesota drove 44 yards on offense to set up a game-winning 46-yard field goal by Luke Drzewiecki as time expired.

That Gopher scoring drive was one of the few times in Saturday’s game when the Iowa defense didn’t rise to the occasion.

Once the game-winning field goal split the uprights, the Minnesota players rushed across the field to claim possession of Floyd of Rosedale for just second time under head coach P.J. Fleck as Iowa had won 10 of the last 11 games in the border rivalry.

“Our players never gave up,” Fleck said on the FS1 post-game interview with fans surrounding him on the field. “This is what college football is all about.”

Iowa also never gave up and had some spectacular individual performances, including defensive tackle and Minnesota native Bryce Hawthorne, who dominated at the line of scrimmage.

Minnesota only rushed for 72 yards, averaged just 3.4 yards per play and only score 13 points.

That shouldn’t be enough to win a Big Ten football game, but it was on Saturday, mostly because the Iowa offense reverted back to its old ways of under-performing.

Iowa had a rare special teams breakdown on its opening series of the game as Boston Everitt’s punt was blocked, giving the Gophers a first down deep in Iowa territory.

Minnesota ultimately settled for a 31-yard field goal, credit to Iowa’s defense.

Iowa then marched inside the Minnesota 10-yard line on its next possession, but the drive ended abruptly as Hecklinski threw an interception at the Gopher two-yard line.

There was no more scoring in the first quarter, which ended with Minnesota leading 3-0 despite only gaining 29 yards in the quarter.

And while Iowa scored the only points in the second quarter on a 32-yard field goal by Caden Buhr with 6:49 left the quarter, evening the score at 3-3, plenty of things still happened in the quarter, and most of it wasn’t good from Iowa’s perspective.

Kirk Ferentz probably raised a few eye brows when he switched quarterbacks slightly beyond the midway point of the second quarter, inserting Brown for Hecklinski, who before being replaced had completed 9-of-16 passes for 62 yards and the one interception.

Hedklinski completed six of his first seven passes, but then he threw six incompletions over his next nine attempts before being removed from the game.

Ferentz has been known to stick with his starting quarterback during tough times, but that wasn’t the case on Saturday as he quickly pulled the plug on Hecklinski.

Ferentz was asked in his post-game press conference what went into the decision to switch quarterbacks. Did he see something in Hecklinski’s performance or was it more a case of trying to give the offense a spark?”

Iowa running back Kamari Moulton also appeared to have injured his right arm in the second quarter and he did not return to the game.

Iowa outgained the Gophers 131 to 69 in the first half, but Iowa only had 43 rushing yards on 15 attempts.

Brown completed 6-of-10 passes for 26 yards and one interception in the first half

Brown’s interception came near the line of scrimmage as a Gopher defender jumped to deflect his pass, but instead hung on to the ball for an interception.

Brown would go on to start for Iowa in the second half, and while he made a few plays, he didn’t make nearly enough to make up for all the mistakes on offense.

Iowa also committed six penalties with most of them coming at crucial points in the game.

Iowa doesn’t usually play sloppy, but that was certainly the case on offense.

The problems on offense started not surprisingly with Iowa failing to run the ball with any effectiveness.

Combine the sputtering running game with the four turnovers and it was recipe for disaster against a Minnesota squad that had lost 41-13 at Purdue in its last game on Oct. 10 in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Iowa, on the other had, had defeated Washington 41-24 in its most recent game on Oct. 9 in Seattle, and with Hecklinski throwing three touchdown passes.

Moulton also rushed for a career-high 208 yards against Washington.

But against Minnesota, neither Moulton nor Hecklinski even finished the first half, of course, for different reasons.

Iowa fell to 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the Big Ten while Minnesota improved to 5-2 and 3-1.

It is widely believed that Iowa would have to finish 10-2 to have a realistic chance of making the 12-team college playoff.

That means Iowa would have to run table starting with next Saturday’s game against Wisconsin at Kinnick Stadium.

But it’s hard to get excited about the playoff when the Iowa offense barely fired a shot against what appears to be good, but hardly a great Minnesota team.

Both teams were coming off a bye week on Saturday, but the Gophers seemed to handle it better than Iowa did.

Iowa has to improve significantly on offense, and must do so in a hurry.

The running game has been wildly inconsistent with Saturday’s game the fourth time Iowa has rushed for fewer than 100 yards this season, while the quarterback play leaves much to be desired no matter who lines up behind center.

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Iowa 0 3 0 7 – 10

Minnesota 3 0 7  3 – 13

M – Luke Drzewiecki 31 FG

I – Caden Buhr 32 FG

M – Darius Taylor 1 run (Drzewiecki kick)

M – Drzewiecki 46 FG