Time of possession has been called the most overrated state in college football and this past weekend there were a couple of examples.The Iowa Hawkeyes improved to 5-2 and won their third straight game with a 38-21 victory over Indiana even though the Hoosiers had the ball for most of the game.
Indiana’s offense ran 101 plays in the game and controlled the ball for more than 40-minutes. But the Hawkeye offense made a number of big plays and got a couple of long fourth quarter touchdowns runs by Albert young and Damian Sims to pull away for the win after the Hoosiers had trimmed the lead to 24-21.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says the third quarter was almost surreal as they had one possession and scored and then Indiana kept the ball the rest of the time. He says the good thing is the team responded in the fourth quarter.
Ferentz’s team has now moved into a share of the Big Ten lead heading into this week’s matchup at home against Michigan. the wolverines knocked off previously unbeaten Penn. state. Ferentz says with the way the season has gone the standings may change every week. He says he has a feeling they’ll get into the first week of November and the conference will still be jumbled up. Ferentz says every week will be exciting to watch.
For the Iowa State Cyclones it was another heartbreaking defeat, this one at Missouri as the Tigers scored 10 points in the final five minutes of regulation to send the game to overtime, then won it on an Adam crossett 26 yard field goal 27-24. I-S-U owned the time of possession as they had the ball for better than 38 minutes, but like the past few weeks turnovers proved costly as the Mizzou defense scored two touchdowns in the opening quarter to build a 14-0 lead. The Cyclones are now 3-3 and will try to snap back against Oklahoma State for their homecoming game.