TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The Iowa Hawkeyes ended their 2025 season on a high note with a decisive victory over Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl. The game, held in the Sunshine State, showcased strong performances from both the defense and offense.<\/p>\n
Karson Sharar and Ethan Hurkett were instrumental on defense, each securing two sacks against Vanderbilt’s quarterback Diego Pavia early in the game. Drew Stevens contributed significantly with two crucial field goals.<\/p>\n
On the offensive side, MVP Mark Gronowski made impactful plays, supported by Reece Vanderzee, who scored a tough first-half touchdown. Freshman tight end DJ Vonnahme made a notable debut in his first career bowl game, recording 146 yards.<\/p>\n
“It means the world,” Vonnahme said. “All the credit goes to my teammates. They’re the ones that trust me and they put me in the situation, so, really the credit goes to them.”<\/p>\n
Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz praised the team’s resilience and focus. “The good thing about our guys, they don’t look backwards. They just kept focusing on what the opportunities were in front of them. So, to beat a ranked team, a deservingly ranked team, 10-win SEC football team, that’s really gratifying. Again the seniors, everybody can feel good about that,” Ferentz said.<\/p>\n
The victory marked the end of a two-game bowl losing streak for Iowa and provided a fitting send-off for the Hawkeye seniors with a win over the 14th-ranked team in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The Iowa Hawkeyes ended their 2025 season on a high note with a decisive victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[52857,53071,53361,38314,53122,143,10011,53362,28,6796,51256,53054,53359,10636,42453,110,135,137,136,53360,10438,52143,15218],"class_list":["post-102139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-big-ten-conference-football","tag-big-ten-conference-football-seasons","tag-bowl-game","tag-college-football-bowls","tag-college-football","tag-diego-pavia","tag-dj-vonnahme","tag-florida","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-iowa-hawkeyes-football","tag-kirk-ferentz","tag-mark-gronowski","tag-quarterback","tag-reliaquest-bowl","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tight-end","tag-touchdown","tag-university-of-iowa","tag-vanderbilt-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}