MADISON, Wisconsin – For the first time since 1929, the University of Iowa football team shut out Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium, winning 37-0 to retain the Heartland Trophy on Saturday night. Iowa’s defense kept the Badgers off the board, notching its first shutout of the season. The Hawkeyes forced three turnovers, as Bryce Hawthorne and Aaron Graves each recorded an interception, and Zach Lutmer recovered a fumble. Karson Sharar led the defense with six tackles, including four solo stops.
Head Coach Kirk Ferentz was happy with his teams dominating performance on both sides of the ball. “Obviously, really pleased with the effort from our team tonight. Really proud of how the guys played. Looking backwards I think the guys handled the bye week extremely well, and then when we got back to work getting ready for this ballgame I thought the week of preparation went really well. Happy about that and most importantly the guys showed up at kickoff.
We played really hard. It wasn’t perfect but the guys made some things happen. It was good to see the takeaways; we hadn’t had an abundance of those this year and we got a couple tonight. Most importantly, we made the takeaways turn into points. I thought we played good opportunistic football and good team football on top of it. The second half is a good example, getting the stop three-and-out and taking the ball and driving about 60 yards to get another touchdown. Mostly, I am just proud of the effort and them being together. Certainly, there are things we are going to have to keep working on, but it is a lot easier to do it after a win. Overall, really pleased.”
Iowa’s rushing attack totaled 209 yards, helping the Hawkeyes outgain the Badgers 319-210 in total yardage. Kamari Moulton led the ground game with 96 yards and a touchdown. Xavier Williams added two rushing scores, and Gronowski found the end zone once on a quarterback sneak. Moulton and Reece Vander Zee each had 29 receiving yards to lead all Hawkeye receivers.
