Blog Ten Gameday: Northwestern Hands Iowa Its First Loss
When Stanzi left the field he took Iowa's national title hopes with him.
Northwestern 17 Iowa 10 Final
You felt that it would come eventually with the way the Iowa Hawkeyes always seem to be teetering on the edge of disaster every Saturday, but you would have hoped it wouldn’t be due to an injury. After the Hawkeyes jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead on Northwestern on Saturday morning in Iowa City, quarterback Ricky Stanzi had to leave the game after injuring his leg while being sacked.
It turns out that Stanzi has a sprained right ankle, and he never returned to the game, leaving the keys to Iowa’s title hopes in the hands of redshirt freshman James Vanderberg.
While Vanderberg did everything he could to lead Iowa to a win, he’s no Ricky Stanzi and the Hawkeyes offense could not sustain a drive long enough to get points with him under center.
Northwestern was dealing with quarterback injuries of their own — it’s a theme in the Big Ten today — as Dan Persa took most of the snaps for Mike Kafka who hurt his hamstring against Penn State last week. Well, Persa did not finish the game after injuring his throwing hand, and Kafka came on to finish the game.
The Wildcats only had 239 yards of offense compared to Iowa’s 280 on the day, but four Hawkeye turnovers proved to be just as fatal as Stanzi’s injury.
The Hawkeyes can still win the Big Ten title if OSU beats Penn State this week and they beat OSU next week, but it now seems unlikely that the Big Ten will have two teams in the BCS this year.
