Iowa Football Took Care Of Business At Northwestern In Classic November Fashion

EVANSTON - Saturday was one of those games that you can chalk up as an Iowa football win. 

That sentence both makes complete sense and doesn't make complete sense. Obviously the Hawkeyes won the football game, but they did so by doing it their way with great defense and timely offense. That's probably the worst way any columnist has described an Iowa win under Kirk Ferentz, but that's the only way to describe the Hawkeyes' 24-10 win at Ryan Field. 

It was certainly far from the cleanest victory Iowa has had in the Ferentz era, but considering the Hawkeyes are at the portion of the season where they need to find any sort of a win they can get to stay alive in the College Football Playoff conversation, Saturday's win definitely sufficed. 

The Hawkeyes were actually a slight underdog in the days leading up to this game, but everything changed once Northwestern starting quarterback Aidan Chiles was ruled out for the contest with an injury on Friday morning. The line immediately moved from Northwestern -2.5 to Iowa -2.5 in an instant because of the monumental absence for the Wildcats, but here's the thing: the Hawkeyes' defensive game plan was so good in this game that it really didn't matter who was under center for the Wildcats. 

Defensive lineman Bryce Hawthorne called the last-second flip from Chiles to backup Nicco Marchiol an "oh crap" moment considering they had already spent the whole week planning for Chiles to be available, but the move was just another way to reveal how special Iowa's defense is. 

There were a lot of good plays in the secondary, but the highlight of this night was undoubtedly the two times the Hawkeyes stuffed the Wildcats on 4th-and-short. It's incredibly hard to do that once, but Iowa is so well-coached and so disciplined that it always has its playmakers in the right spots at the right time. 

Northwestern was already up against the ropes by the time these plays occurred, but the reason why we bring them up each week is because they are simply the plays that define Hawkeye football in these games that don't necessarily feature much of a wow factor. 

And remember the timely offense? It was clicking all cylinders against Wisconsin, and that carried over to the early portion of this football game. Iowa scored touchdowns on two of its first three possessions of the game (they never took a snap in the red zone) and when you combine that with the great defense and a special teams touchdown from Braeden Jackson, you have a classic Hawkeye win in the month of November. 

What makes an Iowa win in November different from September and October victories? Everything we just mentioned above. The Hawkeyes just play their best complimentary football in the month before Christmas, and that's why Ferentz is now 65-33 in November during his nearly three decades at Iowa. 

What's next for the Hawkeyes after this win? Purdue, Illinois, and rival Nebraska. A tricky, but very manageable stretch to close the regular season.

Who knows what will unfold in the next few weeks, but if Iowa can continue to do its thing in November, anything is possible. 

"Kinnick East" has provided another Hawkeye win.