IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) \u2014 Xavier Williams rushed for 122 yards and a touchdown, and Kirk Ferentz moved into a tie as the Big Ten\u2019s all-time winningest coach as Iowa defeated Albany 34-7 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Ferentz, in his 27th season as coach of the Hawkeyes, won his 205th game with the program, tying Ohio State\u2019s Woody Hayes on the conference\u2019s all-time list.<\/p>\n
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Quarterback Mark Gronowski, making his first start with the Hawkeyes after transferring from South Dakota State, threw for just 44 yards, but threw for a touchdown and ran for another before leaving the game with apparent cramping issues in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Williams took over for injured starter Kamari Moulton in the first half.<\/p>\n
Albany took a 7-3 lead in the second quarter when Jack Shields threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Lasalle Rose Jr. But the Hawkeyes quickly responded, driving 65 yards on seven plays on their next possession, finishing the drive with Williams\u2019 3-yard touchdown run.<\/p>\n
Gronowski threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Kaden Wetjen on Iowa\u2019s next drive to put the Hawkeyes up 17-7 at halftime.<\/p>\n
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Gronowski had a 1-yard touchdown run in the third to give the Hawkeyes a 24-7 lead. Drew Stevens had a career-long 55-yard field goal in the fourth, then backup quarterback Hank Brown scored on a 1-yard run for the final margin.<\/p>\n
Ferentz facts<\/p>\n
Ferentz, the longest tenured active head coach in college football, is 205-124 all-time at Iowa, and has a 217-145 career record.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s win was the 23rd in a season opener for Ferentz at Iowa.<\/p>\n
Gronowski\u2019s debut<\/p>\n
Gronowski, who won two FCS national championships at South Dakota State, came to the Hawkeyes to revive a passing game that was one of the nation\u2019s worst the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
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Gronowski, who underwent shoulder surgery in the winter after coming to Iowa, started slowly, completing just two of his first eight passes. He finished the game 8-of-15 passing and had 11 carries for 39 yards.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Albany: At Delaware State next Saturday.<\/p>\n
Iowa: At No. 22 Iowa State next Saturday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) \u2014 Xavier Williams rushed for 122 yards and a touchdown, and Kirk Ferentz moved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[78255,399,78252,13014,32377,78256,47750,78251,398,396,397,78253,99,51568,78254],"class_list":["post-122055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-albany","tag-football","tag-hawkeyes","tag-iowa","tag-iowa-city","tag-kaden-wetjen","tag-kirk-ferentz","tag-mark-gronowski","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-south-dakota-state","tag-sports","tag-touchdown-pass","tag-xavier-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}