Iowa walked into Michigan Stadium on Saturday, got outgained by 144 yards, and won anyway. The Hawkeyes beat Michigan 20-19 on the final play of the game.
Hank Brown found Reece Vander Zee from 16 yards out with two seconds showing, capping a 91-yard drive that took 1 minute and 46 seconds. The clock hit zero while the ball was in the air.
How it happened
Michigan led 19-14 early in the fourth quarter after J.J. Buchanan caught his second touchdown of the day, a 49-yarder. The Wolverines controlled most of the afternoon: 429 total yards to Iowa’s 285, 276 passing yards from Bryce Underwood, two receivers over 100.
They also left points on the field in the worst places. Deshaun Lee intercepted Underwood on third and 11 in the second quarter, and Cam Buffington helped stuff a fourth-down try in the red zone. Michigan turned two trips inside the 20 into nothing at all.
Iowa’s offense was not good either. The Hawkeyes ran 24 times for 58 yards, 2.4 per carry, which is not how this program has ever won anything. Braeden Jackson returned the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown, Brown threw two scoring passes, and that was the entire operation.
On the winning drive an unnecessary roughness penalty on a third down near midfield kept Iowa alive. Brown then hit Addison Ostrenga for 29 yards to set up the throw that ended it.
What it means for Iowa
Iowa is 4-0, 1-0 in the Big Ten, and ranked 14th in the new AP poll. This was the program’s first win in Ann Arbor since 2010 and its first road win over a ranked Big Ten opponent since 2015.
Ohio State comes to Iowa City next. If the Hawkeyes cannot run the ball better than 2.4 yards a pop, that game will be over by the third quarter and the 4-0 start will read as a schedule quirk. But this is the first Iowa team in years that deserves to be taken seriously in October, because it won a game it had no statistical business winning.
What it means for Michigan
Michigan is 3-1, 0-1 in conference play, and out of the AP Top 25 entirely. Losing a home game you led with under two minutes on the clock is the kind of result that follows a team for a month.
Underwood was not the problem. He threw for 276 yards and two touchdowns. The problem was play-calling inside the 20 and a defense that surrendered 91 yards in 106 seconds with the game effectively in hand. A crowd of 111,126 watched Michigan hand the ball over and never see it again.
Minnesota is next, on October 3. The Big Ten race is not finished for Michigan, but the margin for error is gone. One more slip and the conversation moves from playoff seeding to bowl positioning, in a season that was supposed to be a coronation for the quarterback everyone in the sport has been watching since high school.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.