Kirk Ferentz reveals message to Deacon Hill after first-half interception vs. Rutgers

Heading into Saturday’s game between Iowa and Rutgers, the prediction was offense would be hard to come by. That proved to be the case at halftime as the Hawkeyes took a 3-0 lead into the locker room at Kinnick Stadium.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though. Iowa got to the Rutgers 12-yard line when Deacon Hill threw an interception with 11 seconds to play. It was a tough way to end an 8-play, 62-yard drive, but the Hawkeyes came up empty.

As for what Kirk Ferentz’s message will be to Hill at the break, he told Big Ten Network’s Brooke Fletcher it’s about shaking it off and moving on.

“He’s just got to go back to work,” Ferentz said. “We’ve got to eliminate those kinds of plays. Left six points out there at a minimum. It’d be good to get rid of that stuff, but there were some positive signs there.”

One of the challenges for the Iowa defense coming in was to defend Rutgers quarterback Gavin Wimsatt. He entered Week 11 ranked seventh in the Big Ten with 186 total yards of offense per game as a true dual threat, and the Hawkeyes held him to 75 passing yards and one rushing attempt for two yards in the first half.

But running back Kyle Monangai gave Iowa some headaches with nine carries for 32 yards. Ferentz said stopping him will be critical in the second half to not only keeping Rutgers off the scoreboard, but getting a victory.

“I think our guys are doing a good job,” Ferentz said. “The running back’s the No. 1 thing right now. He’s really running the ball tough and making it hard on us. If we can slow the run game down a little bit, it might help us.”

The over-under for Saturday’s game closed at about 28.5, according to FanDuel, and both offenses struggled to get anything going through the first half. The game remained scoreless until the 2:50 mark of the second quarter when Drew Stevens made a 32-yard field goal to put Iowa ahead 3-0.

Iowa entered Saturday’s game ranked 133rd — or last — in the nation in total offense, averaging just 225 yards per game on that side of the ball. Rutgers, meanwhile, came in at 106th with 330.9 yards per contest. The challenge, though, is that the Scarlet Knights are going up against a defense that holds teams to 298.7 yards on average, which ranks No. 16 in the FBS.