Iowa\u2019s starting offensive line, which has a combined 119 starts and 152 games played, has given up only three sacks this season and committed only three penalties, according to PFF.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just play so well together as a unit,\u201d Gophers defensive coordinator Danny Collins said. \u201cWhere they\u2019re really dangerous is they love to get after it and run the ball. \u2026 They play really fast together. They\u2019re always aligned on the same page in terms of protection. That\u2019s going to be a challenge for us.”<\/p>\n
The Hawkeyes are averaging 192.7 rushing yards per game, which ranks fifth in the Big Ten. Their leading rusher is running back Kamari Moulton (360 yards), but their most dangerous might be Gronowski, the graduate transfer who led South Dakota State to a pair of FCS national championships. Gronowski rushed nine times for 130 yards in a 25-24 win over Penn State last week. Included in that was a 67-yard run that set up Iowa\u2019s winning touchdown in the final four minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir quarterback, he\u2019s talented, he\u2019s tough and hard-working,\u201d Kingsbury said. \u201cThey can run the ball. The biggest thing is we know that we\u2019re going into a big battle against these guys, and it\u2019s going to be most physical team wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, the Gophers wore that most-physical label against Nebraska. The signature play came in the third quarter, just after Minnesota\u2019s offense completed a 14-play, 98-yard drive to take a 14-6 lead. On third-and-5 from the Nebraska 22, Kingsbury came on a blitz, blew up Huskers running back Emmett Johnson and sacked Raiola for an 8-yard loss. Five plays later, the Gophers stretched the lead to 21-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how far I knocked [Johnson] back until I saw the video,\u201d Kingsbury said. \u201cI\u2019ve always played with violence and physicality my whole career, so it definitely felt good to get that done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iowa\u2019s starting offensive line, which has a combined 119 starts and 152 games played, has given up only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-250807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250807","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=250807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}