This past weekend, the Big 10 championship took place with No. 13 Iowa Hawkeyes playing the No. 2 team Michigan Wolverines. The last time Iowa beat Michigan was back in 2016 when Keith Duncan kicked the winning 33 yard field goal. That is a moment I would rather relive than this weekend’s game. 

The beginning of the game was strong for the Hawkeyes offense; being able to move the ball faster than normal was very unexpected for the team. Normally the Hawks aren’t moving the ball this fast until the second half of the game. To no surprise this ended fast, and it was back to running the ball and getting very little yardage with the offensive team. 

The Hawkeye defense was doing great as usual, especially with No. 31 Jack Campbell getting an interception and tackling Michigan’s quarterback – that helped out a lot for the team. 

There were at least a few calls that were questionable in the game, but one in particular that could’ve helped the Iowa team was when the Michigan team had a targeting flag under review. From my point of view and others, it did look like a targeting move; even the announcers had said that the way the Iowa offensive players head jerked back you could see that it was definitely targeting and that the player should be out. But unfortunately the referees of the game did not see the same things as fans did. After further review the call was overturned, and the Hawkeyes did not get the automatic first down like fans were hoping to get. If the call was not overturned at that moment the team could’ve had a great outcome and wouldn’t have had to punt it back to Michigan. 

I think, like many fans had thought, it would’ve been better if the team switched Petras and Padilla earlier in the game. The offensive team would’ve had more yards on the field and may have scored at least a touchdown within the first half instead of just having one field goal the entire game. In addition to this, instead of running the ball every time and gaining at most two yards every time Iowa had the ball. Would that have even helped by throwing the ball more? Maybe, but that would require the switch of Petras and Padilla in the very beginning instead of in the second half. As I noticed Petras kept overthrowing the ball to LaPorta or just throwing it out of bounds way too much. Thankfully LaPorta is great at receiving when the ball is thrown accurately. 

As many fans agree after watching the game, it shouldn’t have been a game that was played in the first place. Iowa may have a great defensive team, but good enough to play No. 2 in the conference, very questionable. If it was a normal Iowa game, the team would’ve pulled something in the second half and made a few touchdowns, but no. Instead, they just had a few great plays in the entire game. Let’s see what the team brings to the Citrus Bowl.