IOWA CITY, Iowa — If ever a single play could define a football season, it did just that for Iowa late Saturday afternoon.
The No. 16 Hawkeyes trailed Illinois by four points with less than five minutes remaining. They lined up with a backup quarterback, a backup center, a backup guard and their No. 3 and No. 4 tight ends on the field, 30 yards from leaving a legacy.
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At the snap, four members of the offensive line blocked down to the boundary, tight end Addison Ostrenga drove his defender five yards vertically and guard Nick DeJong and tight end Steven Stilianos pulled to the field. Every block found its target. It was up to running back Kaleb Johnson to see the hole and hit it.
Johnson cut through a path opened wide by Ostrenga and left tackle Mason Richman, then broke to his right and up the sideline for a touchdown to send Iowa to the Big Ten championship game with a 15-13 victory.
“I saw green grass, took off running and scored. It was just amazing,” Johnson said. “I was just reading the safety right there, whether I should press up and go in or go out. I pressed him, went outside and used my speed.”
It was a history-defining play equaled by only one other score 67 years ago. But more on that later. On Saturday, every piece of Johnson’s game-winning touchdown run represented a speck of adversity in the mosaic of a special season.
First, the play was called by offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, who was dismissed by president Barbara Wilson and interim athletics director Beth Goetz in late October and will leave when the season concludes. The ball was snapped by Tyler Elsbury, who has struggled with confidence issues but more than adequately replaced center Logan Jones, who is battling an ankle sprain. Quarterback Deacon Hill, who took over for injured starter Cade McNamara in the fifth game of the season, handed off to Johnson, who missed three games with a high-ankle sprain and didn’t play in another because of a coach’s decision.
Every player has a story like this in college football. At Iowa, they’re more pronounced because of the offensive challenges. So when it comes together, it’s … well, Hill had a better way of phrasing his emotion afterward.
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“You try and stay level throughout the whole game and not let your emotions get to you,” Hill said. “Feel whatever you need to feel after the game. That is something that coaches taught me, and it has been really helpful. So after the game, it’s going to explode a little bit.”
Even the call itself was somewhat foreign. Although Ferentz said afterward that “we have a good comfort level at this point” with a counter run, it’s not a blocking scheme that Iowa regularly employed before this year. The Hawkeyes were wedded to zone almost exclusively until this season. It’s a conservative estimate that Iowa now is close to 50-50 between gap and zone blocking.
“That run, that was perfect,” Ferentz said. “That’s how this team has worked.”
There were perhaps more exciting snaps in Kinnick Stadium history, but for one play to clinch a championship of any kind, Johnson’s run is not only memorable, it’s historic. After rallying to beat Nebraska on the road in 2021, Iowa had to wait one day before scanning its West championship ticket. In 2015, the West was sealed in a 40-20 win. In 2004, the Hawkeyes rolled through Wisconsin 30-7. In 2002, Iowa flattened Minnesota and stole the Gophers’ goal posts in a 45-21 win.
Under Hayden Fry, the Hawkeyes clinched their 1990 Rose Bowl bid with a loss. In 1985, the Hawkeyes claimed their last outright Big Ten title with a 31-9 home win against Minnesota. In 1981, a miraculous season concluded with a 36-7 blowout of Michigan State at Kinnick.
Forest Evashevski’s 1958 squad lost the Big Ten finale to Ohio State but already had the title wrapped up. Only in 1956 has Iowa won a championship on a play with similar importance. That year, quarterback Kenny Ploen hit end Jim Gibbons on a 17-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to beat the Buckeyes 6-0 and take Iowa to its first Rose Bowl.
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That’s right, the last time a singular touchdown at Kinnick Stadium determined an Iowa championship was 67 years ago. This one happened to coincide with Ferentz moving past Michigan coach Bo Schembechler and into third place on the Big Ten’s all-time wins list at 195. It’s also the 10th time in 25 years a Ferentz-coached team has won at least nine games.
No wonder Ferentz began his news conference 88 minutes after the game concluded — and brought a cigar.
“I was a Boston Celtics fan growing up,” Ferentz said. “Red Auerbach. What if he did that today, lit a cigar up on a bench? I’m showing restraint. I’m not doing that.”
In a season like and after a play like that, smoke ’em if you got ’em.
(Photo: Matthew Holst / Getty Images)