Hawks snap 5-game skid with 19-14 win

(Published 10/23/1994)

IOWA CITY -

The Iowa Hawkeyes got fed up Saturday afternoon.

They got fed up with losing. They got fed up with being pushed around. They got fed up with one of Michigan State's defensive linemen spitting in their faces.

Finally, they got even.

The Hawkeyes stuffed the ball down MSU's throats in the second half and snatched an emotional 19-14 victory before 68,532 customers at Kinnick Stadium.

Fans stormed the field when it was ended and the Hawkeyes danced their hokey-pokey in a locker room celebration. Some of them did not remember how to dance, it had been so long.

It was quite a fuss for a last-place team, but spirits soared with the end of a five-game slide and a satisfying win.

"It was like we'd won the Big Ten championship," said Iowa Coach Hayden Fry. "You get kicked around like we have for five ballgames and all the injuries ... We knew we earned it today."

The Hawkeyes (3-5, 1-4) earned it the old-fashioned way, with a ball-control offense that beat Michigan State at its own game.

Sedrick Shaw rushed for 137 yards and Kent Kahl churned for 120 as the Hawkeyes dominated the second half.

Kahl's 3-yard touchdown with 2 minutes left was the decisive score, and the Hawks held on after MSU reached the 14-yard line with 54 seconds left to play.

Iowa went 80 yards in 13 plays for the winning TD. Kahl and Shaw did most of the work behind a determined offensive line.

"We got to the basic stuff where it's just us against them, and that's the way the guys up front like to play," said Kahl, who was thinking end zone all the way. "I knew I got it across the goal line and I just felt great. That was the best feeling. I was not going to be denied on that one."

It was the first time Iowa had a pair of 100-yard rushers in the same Big Ten game since Nick Bell and Tony Stewart turned the trick against Wisconsin in 1990. Kahl eclipsed 100 yards for the first time. He gained 40 yards on the winning drive.

"When I saw Kent making those 7-8 yard runs, I pretty much knew our offensive line was physically handling those guys," Shaw said.

Fry challenged his team to control the line of scrimmage in the second half after MSU quarterback Tony Banks struck for a pair of TD passes in the first 30 minutes.

In addition, the U of I offensive linemen were extremely upset with Michigan State nose tackle Aaron Jackson.

"I didn't really appreciate playing against him," said guard Fritz Fequiere. "He was doing a lot of things that were very unsportsmanlike. There was some spitting going on, there were a lot of curse words going on back and forth, and it was hard to keep your composure, but we did so we could get the win."

Center Casey Wiegmann, back in action with a modified cast on his broken right hand, got the same treatment.

"Aaron Jackson spit on me quite a few times during the game, and the refs never saw it," he said. The Hawks got mad, then they got even.

Fry reached into his bag of exotics to help make it happen against the Spartans (2-5, 1-3). Anthony Dean, a wide receiver, got the ball on a reverse and passed 41 yards to Harold Jasper to set up Kahl's 2-yard TD in the first quarter for a 7-0 lead.

On two occasions, freshman Tim Dwight lined up as a wide receiver and scampered a total of 42 yards on end-around plays. The exotics kept MSU off-balance and helped set the stage for a pair of meat-and-potatoes drives in the second half.

On the first one, Iowa went 87 yards on 16 plays and used 8 minutes, 2 seconds before settling for Brion Hurleys's 21-yard field. That pulled the Hawks within a point at 14-13. On the second drive, Iowa went 80 yards in 13 plays and used 5:24 before Kahl got the winning score.

Kahl played like a man possessed on the winning drive.

"When Kent Kahl is on the field we're a different team," said quarterback Mike Duprey, who went the distance. "Kent Kahl is an amazing player. The kid gets the ball time after time, he takes some hard, hard shots time after time, and he sucked it up. He went to a different level."

The Hawkeyes rushed for 369 yards, a season high. Michigan State ranked 11th in rushing defense when the game began, but the Spartans had played Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

"We never expect anybody to run that well against us, the way they did in the second half," said MSU Coach George Perles. "They were motivated. They could smell it."

Iowa trailed 14-10 at halftime because of Banks, the rifle-armed MSU quarterback. He found Derrick Mason for a 32-yard strike in the first quarter, then stunned the Hawkeyes with a 59-yard bullet to Muhsin Muhammad with just 13 seconds left. Muhammad got behind cornerback Billy Coats for the TD that wiped out a 10-7 Hawkeye lead.

Fry did not like those easy scores. "We challenged them at halftime," Fry said. 'The only way we were going to win the ballgame was to keep it away from Michigan State."

The Hawkeyes kept the ball for 20 minutes, 36 seconds in the second half compared to 9:26 for MSU and shut them out.

Iowa had some tense times after taking the 19-14 lead.

The Hawkeyes were hit with a 15-yard penalty for a personal foul after the touchdown, and the penalty was assessed on the ensuing kickoff. Iowa kicked off from its own 20, and Mason returned the ball 42 yards to the Hawkeye 33-yard line.

Banks found Muhammad for a 13-yard gain to the 20 with 1:31 remaining, and it looked like the Spartans might spoil the day.

Parker Wildeman sacked Banks for an 11-yard loss, but Banks hit Mason for a 17-yard pickup to the 14. That brought up 4th-and-4 with 54 seconds left in the game.

Iowa safety Bo Porter blitzed, and Banks could not connect with Muhammad inside the 5-yard line as U of I cornerback Plez Atkins supplied the coverage. The Hawkeyes are not known for safety blitzes.

"That's really letting it hang out, and it worked," Perles said.

"It's better to go after people to make mistakes and make them react quickly," Fry said. "I don't know if Bo was actually called on or he did it on his own. I can't tell you, but I'll find out."

He'll take it either way. The Hawkeyes had not won a game since Sept. 10.

"Man, that was a great one," said Fry. "We needed that, as you guys know. To see a happy group of young men like that, it's the greatest feeling in the world."

Wiegmann started and played the whole game at center. Chris Webb and Bill Ennis-Inge, a pair of defensive linemen, returned after being idled with injuries and played a lot as substitutes. Tight end Scott Slutzker returned and saw spot action.

"Just getting some of the crippled guys back probably was the difference in getting us over the hump," Fry said.