Northern Illinois coach Rod Carey denied his call for a fake punt was ?tricky.?
And Iowa wasn?t fooled.
?Was it a surprise? No,? Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz told reporters Saturday after NIU?s 30-27 victory at Kinnick Stadium.
What it was, was bold.
Roman poet Virgil wrote that ?fortune favors the bold? more than 2,000 years ago, and it certainly has worked that way for Carey at NIU.
Carey was elevated to offensive coordinator at NIU before the start of last season, and then became the Huskies? head coach before their Orange Bowl date with Florida State. With Carey running the offense, the Huskies were 18-for-23 on fourth down until desperation time in that FSU game.
Fourth down was again a big reason why the Huskies eked out that win at Iowa. The Hawkeyes were sightly better on third down (7-for-17 vs. NIU?s 7-for-20), but NIU was 2-for-3 on fourth down to Iowa?s 0-for-1.
NIU trailed 24-17 late in the third quarter when Tyler Wedell ran 42 yards on that fake punt to the Iowa 5-yard-line.
?We needed to do something to get something going,? Carey said Monday on the weekly Mid-American Conference conference call. ?Giving our offense another possession is always a positive.
?I don?t see that as aggressive. I just see it as another play in the football game. When and if we have an advantage, we?re always going to try to use it. We just were fortunate to have an opportunity to run it in the right situation and the players executed.?
The Huskies, though, look for those opportunities and trust their offense. While Iowa punted on fourth-and-3 from its own 46 on its opening drive, NIU never punted on less than fourth-and-4, and that was from its own 31.
NIU?s other two fourth-down tries came on a 14-play, 49-yard drive in the third quarter. Quarterback Jordan Lynch succeeded on one fourth-and-2 rush and was stopped on his second fourth-and-2 run.
But NIU ran an extra eight plays on that drive because of the two fourth-down attempts, and even when the Huskies were stopped, they responded by stopping Iowa on its next four drives.
Carey doesn?t want to make too much of NIU?s fourth win in 40 tries against the Big Ten.
?I?m not going to make this out to be something it isn?t,? Carey said. ?It?s not like we played a perfect game.?
No, the Huskies didn?t, but staying bold and converting a couple of fourth-down conversions can cover up a lot of imperfections.
Matt Trowbridge: 815-987-1383; mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge
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