IOWA CITY - Iowa didn’t waste any time Saturday, and Northern Iowa never found a way to make the afternoon competitive.
The Hawkeyes opened with a touchdown on the first drive and kept pouring it on from there in a 55-0 rout at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 19.
By the end of the first quarter, the tone was already set. By halftime, the game was long gone, and Iowa had piled up a 42-0 lead in what became its first 50-point performance since a 2021 win over Maryland.
With Kamari Moulton and South Dakota transfer L.J. Phillips Jr. out because of injury, Iowa leaned on its reserve backs and got a huge day out of the group.
Nathan McNeil got the start and scored his first career touchdown right away, then finished with 12 carries for 111 yards and two scores. Xavier Williams added the biggest rushing output of the bunch, turning six carries into 151 yards.
Braeden Jackson also made the most of his chance, catching his first career pass and first touchdown on a 24-yard throw from Hank Brown in the opening quarter before breaking loose for a 62-yard touchdown run in the fourth. Jackson ended with 125 yards on the ground, giving Iowa three rushers over 100 yards.
Brown was sharp from the start and never missed a beat. He completed all 12 of his passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns before giving way in the first half.
His second touchdown came on a 14-yard completion to Addison Ostrenga early in the second quarter. Brown distributed the ball to eight different receivers and repeatedly found space with short throws after buying time in the pocket.
Jeremy Hecklinski entered with just over eight minutes left in the first half and kept the perfect quarterback start rolling, pushing Iowa’s streak of consecutive completions to 16. He finished 6-for-11 for 65 yards.
The offense was rolling so hard that Iowa had more than 500 yards with two minutes left in the third quarter and finished at 620.
On the other side, Northern Iowa had to throw to stay alive, and the Hawkeye defense smothered that plan too. The Panthers managed just 2.1 yards per carry, and quarterback Jaxon Dailey went 11-for-27 for 91 yards with two interceptions. Jacob Wallace and Rashad Godfrey Jr. each came away with their first career picks.
Iowa also got a takeaway from Tyler Brown, who returned after missing the previous two games with an injury and forced a fumble that went out of bounds on Northern Iowa’s opening drive. Cam Buffington led the defense with six tackles, and Drew Campbell added a sack.
The shutout was Iowa’s second of the season in its first three games, the first time the Hawkeyes have blanked two opponents in the same season since 2022. Next up is a much bigger test: No. 19 Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 26 in Ann Arbor.
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DJ Vonnahme and Kamari Moulton were among the players missing from the chart, and that only adds to the uncertainty around how Iowa plans to handle a matchup that tends to demand every available piece. On the defensive side, recent transfer Tyler Brown already saw the field in Week 3 and is expected to keep factoring into the rotation, but the broader picture in Iowa City remains cloudy as the Hawkeyes head into a game where the depth chart may be telling only part of the story. [Read more 🡒]
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Iowa Freshmen Are Already Forcing Their Way Into The Rotation
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The bigger takeaway is not just that the freshmen are playing, but that some have been productive while doing it, stacking tackles, pressures and solid grades in the process. Iowa has leaned on young players in a way that can change the tone of a rotation, especially when depth and development matter as much as raw talent. The question now is how much bigger those roles get as the games get tougher and the staff decides who can handle even more responsibility. [Read more 🡒]