Hlas: A shocking Hawkeyes lightning storm

IOWA CITY - This was crazier than a box of hammers, a soup sandwich, or a bed full of bedbugs.

The numbers on the Kinnick Stadium scoreboard were growing faster than those on the National Debt Clock. Iowa, a football team with an offense you could call tedious on a witness stand without a judge warning you about the consequences of perjury, was throwing lightning bolts on a blue-sky day.

Biff! Cornerback Desmond King got it started with a touchdown off a 35-yard return of an interception, 64 seconds after Iowa took a 7-0 lead on a 15-play drive.

Bam! On the first play of Iowa's next drive, it was Jake Rudock with a perfect bomb to Damond Powell for a 72-yard touchdown.

Boom! After the Hawkeyes surrendered an 83-yard TD run to Indiana's Tevin Coleman, Iowa scored on its next play, a 60-yard run by Jonathan Parker.

The math said Iowa scored 28 first-quarter points. The math said the four Hawkeye touchdowns came within 3 minutes and 38 seconds. The math said Iowa had scoring 'drives” of 11 and 9 seconds. The math was wacky-wack.

'We're the birthplace of arena football,” Hawkeyes Coach Kirk Ferentz said after his team's 45-29 triumph. 'Probably appropriate today.”

It didn't hurt to have Indiana as a punching bag. The Hoosiers had set plenty of precedents for being less than airtight on defense, including a 45-42 loss at Bowling Green and a 37-15 home defeat to Maryland.

Still, this was a game the oddsmakers and just about everyone else who cared said the Hawkeyes would have to sweat. This was a matchup that required the Hawkeyes to come up with some serious offense given the Hoosiers' capability on that side of the ball, and they did just that.

Best of all, this was engaging, entertaining, dynamic football. Iowa's 4-1 start this season had felt like four ultimately successful but not particularly enjoyable trips to the dentist and one visit gone badly wrong. This victory was the football equivalent of a hot fudge sundae.

King, the terrific sophomore corner, and artfully timed his cut in front of freshman Hoosier receiver Dominique Booth and one-handed his pick before racing for his score. Safely home, he eased up just a wee bit in the last few yards before scoring.

'I kind of did,” King admitted. 'I just wanted to feel the moment a little bit more. Once I passed through the pylons, it was home free.”

King set a Michigan high school record with 29 career interceptions, two for touchdowns. This was his first college INT, in Game No. 19 and Start No. 18. His timing for Pick No. 1 was as impeccable as the interception itself.

'Everything was in slow motion when I saw the ball in the air,” King said. 'I guess today was the day I kind of took my shot and actually got some points with it, also.”

Powell had made a few other truly big plays in his two seasons here. He had a sensational one-hand grab for 63 yards during the Hawkeyes' comeback win at Pittsburgh.

On a simple post route, Rudock heaved it and Powell caught it ('Two hands this time,” he said. 'I wanted to make sure I'd catch it.”) then easily outran cornerback Tim Bennett. Powell slammed on the breaks in the end zone and stared directly at the fans in the end zone bleachers who were going nuts.

'Felt so good,” Powell said. 'Because we have great fans and everything. You do something like that, they're pretty into it.”

Then there was Parker, a red-shirt freshman. On his second carry of the day, he followed a great block by fellow receiver Jacob Hillyer and 'I took the opening. Next thing I knew, I saw the daylight and I was in the end zone.”

Parker put the 'jet” in jet sweep. The ball was cradled tightly in his hand and he pumped his right arm in joy as he crossed the goal line.

'It was just a great feeling,” he said. 'Like I'm here, I made it, I'm almost there, once I'm in I'm in.

OK, so that was a little out-of-sequence. But this wasn't:

'Once I got in,” said Parker, 'I'm like ‘Yes! First touchdown. Many more to come.' ”

How many? 'I can't tell you that,” he said before laughing.

Parker fumbled twice against Ball State four games ago. Those who thought Ferentz would bury him on the bench for a while because of that couldn't have been more wrong.

Parker: 'Coach Ferentz said ‘It's football. It happens. It happens to the best of us, so just keep on working.' '

Before the season started, the outside world declared four running backs were potential carry-splitters for Iowa. None were Parker. He said he knew it, but didn't stew about it.

'From my standpoint, I just feel like I made myself different than everyone else,” Parker said.

Meaning? 'In what I bring on the field, by the way that I make people miss by using my speed.”

The first quarter was lightning. Four Hawkeye touchdowns in under four minutes. Three sudden strikes, by pick, rush and pass. A Big Bam Boom. It was the total opposite of tedious.

Was this heaven? No, it was … Iowa!?!