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ESPN college football analyst Kirk
Herbstreit publishes his list of the top team and coaching performances after
every week during the college football season.
Herbstreit listed his top performances
on Monday, and Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was
awarded Herbstreit's top coaching performance of the weekend.
The Hawkeyes went into Ames on Saturday
to square off with in-state rival Iowa State, and took care of business topping
the Cyclones 18-17. In a game that had two weather delays totaling 2 hours and
55 minutes, the Iowa special teams and defense came up in the clutch to give
the Hawkeyes their third win of the season.
Ferentz
addressed the struggles of this year's Cy-Hawk game in his Sunday Conversation
on HawkeyeSports.com.
"What we didn't know is that it would
become a nighttime game, which makes it that much harder," said Ferentz.
"The delays threw a monkey wrench in there. The players handled things
well, the staff had a good plan, too. The players, their ability to adjust to
the variance in times and then with the second one which got a little
challenging with the length of the delay (2:06). Guys started getting hungry
and all that, so we had managers go out and getting food."
"All
in all, everybody handled it well. Luckily we weren't worn out. Those were
three pregame warmups we went through which is unheard of. All that stuff going
on, yet the players stayed focused and competed better as the game went
on."
Iowa
got a nice boost from a few different players.
One
of the big performers of the night was kicker Keith Duncan, who converted on
all four of his field-goal attempts, including the go-ahead field goal in the
fourth quarter. Duncan is known for his walk-off field goal to upset Michigan
in 2016. The past two seasons, Duncan didn't get as much action due to the
emergence of Miguel Recinos.
Instead
of transferring, Duncan kept working, and was named the starting kicker this
year and has delivered thus far. Duncan was named the Big Ten Special Teams
Player of the Week.
Iowa
cornerback DJ Johnson was named the Big Ten Freshman of the week
after starting his first collegiate game on Saturday due to multiple injuries
in the secondary. Johnson made a couple of rookie mistakes during the game, but
adjusted as time went on, and came up with a pass deflection that would've
resulted in a huge gain for Iowa State.
"I
love adversity,” Johnson said. “Adversity, it shows us who we really are. So
when (the double-pass for a touchdown) happened, I just kept talking. I went to
the bench and prayed and then I just kept playing and everything just worked
out.”
Right
below Ferentz in second place on Herbstreit's list is Eastern Michigan head
coach Chris Creighton, who lead his team to victory on the road
at Illinois, one of the biggest upsets of the weekend.
