Kirk Ferentz used Iowa's 3 timeouts in the final seconds of a blowout for the best possible reason: Spite
A battle of 1-2 Big Ten West teams typically isn’t considered the most interesting of matchups, especially when one of those teams takes a 35-0 lead during the game.
Iowa and Minnesota still found a way to entertain in the final minutes.
With Iowa up by five touchdowns later in Friday’s game at Minnesota, Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck kept his starters in to at least avoid the ignominy of a shutout. The decision appeared to be on the verge of paying off when Minnesota reached Iowa’s four-yard line with 20 seconds left in the game.
At the point, Fleck opted to take a timeout, extending a game that was already over.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz wasn’t too happy about that. How do we know this? Well, consider that Ferentz countered Fleck’s timeout with his own timeout. Then another. Then another. In the near-freezing cold of Minneapolis.
Minnesota ended up scoring touchdown to retain some of its dignity in a 35-7 loss, but the shots kept coming from Iowa after the game.
Kirk Ferentz rubs it in vs. Minnesota
Just look at what Ferentz had to say, via Rivals:
“They called a timeout to get a look at what we were doing and reconsider, so we just wanted to make sure that we got a good look at what they were doing,” Ferentz said. “No sense taking them on the bus with us, right? [The media] reminds us about that a couple of times over the last 22 years. I figured we’d take Floyd with us and leave the timeouts here.”
You can practically see the grin inside Ferentz.
Those five touchdowns also included a two-point conversion the Hawkeyes converted when they were up 26-0 in case you needed more evidence this was a little personal for Iowa its quest to bring the Floyd of Rosedale trophy back to Iowa City once again.
The team’s Twitter account then joined in on the fun, sending out a tweet that simultaneously bragged about Iowa’s six straight wins over Minnesota and mocked Fleck’s famous “Row the Boat” motto.
The Row'd To Six Straight#Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/pGPfHWkpQJ
— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) November 14, 2020
Just go ahead and circle next year’s Iowa-Minnesota game on the calendar when the schedule comes out.
More from Yahoo Sports:
