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Score: Iowa 24, Wyoming 3
Key play: Josey Jewell sacks scrambling Josh Allen
Allen flashed his first-round potential on one what looked like a sure-fire sack. With the Hawkeyes only up 7-3 in the middle of the second quarter, Allen appeared destined to escape and make a highlight-reel throw that we’d all be seeing on his draft tape. Instead, Jewell made sure that didn’t happen.
The preseason All-American looked the part all day, but no play was bigger than that one to squash any Wyoming hope.
One offensive star: Noah Fant
How about the sophomore tight end? Fant started his day by getting absolutely rocked on a nice deep ball from Nathan Stanley.
Noah Fant just got leveled trying to make that catch. pic.twitter.com/tNjfp7k1wV
— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) September 2, 2017
But after that, things opened up for Fant and the Iowa passing game. He hauled in two touchdown catches on beautiful balls from Stanley, and provided a much-needed offensive lift. Fant only finished the day with two catches for 29 yards, but he made the most of them. For a team that still has loads of questions at receiver, Iowa needs big-time production from the Omaha native. That’s exactly what the Hawkeyes got in the opener.
What it means: Iowa ain’t scared of big-time QBs
You can’t say enough about the job that Iowa did against Allen. First-round hype or not, they made it a long afternoon for the veteran signal-caller. He finished with just 174 passing yards, zero touchdowns and two interceptions.
This was a guy who was one of six FBS quarterbacks with 3,000 passing yards and 500 rushing yards last season. We saw flashes of that, but for the most part, Allen was contained in all facets. Jewell did a lot of the heavy lifting, as did the Iowa secondary. Shoot, it feels wrong not to include anyone on the Iowa defense for the job that was done on one of the most talked about NFL prospects in America.
The Hawkeyes won’t face a better quarterback prospect than Allen all year, but they will face better teams overall. Still, that was quite the effort from the Hawkeyes.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.