That and the part where we completely dominated them everywhere but at our QB spot and after possibly our best defender got thrown out.
3 dominant plays = 21 Iowa points instead of 7 NU points. 2 LONG runs boom. 14 points. 1 pick 6 for them, should have been 7 for us (play was open for a TD red rather than TD yellow). You are understating Iowa's dominant quotient by about 21 points and NU's anti-dominant terrible plays.
Perhaps it's just too late but I'm not following you.
Yes, they got three big plays. That's what I was referring to about our QB and not having our best defender. I think our QB cost us quite a bit and I don't think they get the two long TD runs if Gerry is still in the game.
We out-gained them 433 to 250. Without those two long TD runs they only had 153 yards of offense. They were 0-9 on third down. We dominated almost the entire game. Without the three plays listed above, we could have beaten them 20-7. Without the other three picks TA threw it could have been worse. That's anywhere from 3-6 plays out of the 127 plays run in that game that turned a 13+ point win for the Huskers into an 8 point loss. I don't think saying the gamed turned on 3 out of 127 plays is understating Iowa's dominance. We resoundingly outplayed them for about 98% of the snaps. Unfortunately the other 2% was enough to turn the game in their favor.
Mavric
Do you have the yards gained by both teams broken down by first half - second half ?
I'm curious what the difference of total yards gained by both teams was at the end of the first half.
First Half:
Nebraska - 168 yards on 36 plays, 4.7 ypp
Iowa - 112 yards on 26 plays, 4.3 ypp
Second Half:
Nebraska - 265 yards on 47 plays, 5.6 ypp
Iowa - 138 yards on 18 plays, 7.7 ypp; Without the two TD runs: 41 yards on 16 plays, 2.6 ypp
There's your answer.
The difference in yards gained in the first half was
56 yards.
The difference in yards gained in the second half was
127 yards.
That's simply because Iowa... after scoring two touchdowns rapidly in the second half... then went into their
"prevent" game. They became more conservative on offense and they became more "prevent" on defense (willing to give up 10-15 yards in order to prevent 30-40 yard plays and touchdowns) and in order to run out the clock.
A team can run up a lot of yards playing against a prevent defense but it didn't help Nebraska make up the substantial lead in points that Iowa had.
Iowa played that game very, very smart. They won the game by playing smart rather than by running up a bunch of yards. They
scored points... we ran up yards against a prevent defense. The difference in yards gained in that game really means nothing... and it certainly did not indicate that we dominated the game. Iowa won that game in a fairly convincing manner despite what the "stats" are.
Iowa is very well coached. We're going to have our hands full from now on when we play them.