Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1390373
2020 RECORD 2-5, 2-5 Big Ten COACH Bret Bielema (/rst season; career record: 97-58) SERIES HISTORY The Nittany Lions have won three in a row and lead the series, 20-5. MOST RECENT MEETING Jahan Dotson caught six passes for 189 yards and two touchdowns, Lamont Wade scored on a 100-yard kicko* return and Penn State racked up 253 rushing yards to rout the visiting Illini, 56-21, in the teams' sea- son /nale on Dec. 19, 2020. OFFENSE When Illinois faced Penn State in its Champions Week season- capper, Isaiah Williams got nearly all the snaps at quarterback. It might have ap- peared that the former four-star athlete from St. Louis was well-positioned to inherit the full-time job, with senior Brandon Peters presumably exiting. But about a week a?er Bielema was named the team's new head coach, Peters an- nounced he was coming back. Now, the Michigan transfer appears /rmly estab- lished as the starter, while Williams was moved to wide receiver in spring prac- tice. Peters looked sharp in Illinois' spring game, throwing for 291 yards and leading the o*ense to touchdowns on WEEK 7 ILLINOIS N O O N | O C T . 2 3 | B E A V E R S T A D I U M | U N I V E R S I T Y P A R K , P A . thrashing of Oregon. If Iowa is to con- tend for the West Division title this year, the season's make-or-break stretch could come during a three-week span beginning in late October when the Hawkeyes visit Wisconsin and North- western followed by a home game against Minnesota. A well-timed open date should help. The Hawkeyes will be o* the weekend before their trip to Camp Randall. GAME OF THE YEAR This should be fun: Iowa will play host to Minnesota on Nov. 13 in the resumption of a rivalry that got a little chippy last year in Minneapolis when Ferentz opted to use all three of his timeouts in the /nal seconds of a game in which his team was leading by 35 points. The Hawkeyes won, 35-7, assur- ing that Floyd of Rosedale would reside in Iowa City for a sixth consecutive year. Asked about the timeouts a?er the game, Ferentz was uncharacteristically snarky. "No sense taking them on the bus with us," he said. "Figured we'd take Floyd with us and leave the timeouts." It's unlikely that moment will have been forgotten by the time Minnesota's bus rolls up to Kinnick Stadium for the re- match. The Gophers might even save a seat for Floyd, just in case. OUTLOOK Iowa is one of those pro- grams that just keeps on keeping on. The Hawkeyes don't usually get an outpour- ing of love from the recruiting pundits on signing day, nor do they turn up on those annual preseason lists of College Football Playo* contenders. But they rarely fall too far o* the pace in the Big Ten's West Division, and every once in a while they'll surprise you. They cer- tainly surprised some people last year, rebounding from a painful o*-season and back-to-back season-opening losses to win their /nal six games. This year's team could surprise, too. It has some signi/cant holes to /ll on the of- fensive and defensive lines, and that's usually a sign of trouble. But the Hawkeyes have /nished among the top three teams in their division seven of the past eight years. Would you bet against them doing it again? –M.H. LONGTIME COACH Ferentz is the longest- tenured active coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision. He was hired by Iowa in Decem- ber 1998. Photo by Bryan Fuller/MGoBlog