Safety net: Iowa avoids FCS upset
Iowa’s defense came up with two second-half safeties, and the Hawkeyes opened the season with a 7-3 win over South Dakota State on Saturday.
Neither team could do much offensively. Iowa finished with 166 yards of offense, while South Dakota State had 120. The two teams combined for more punts (21) than first downs (16).
“Obviously a very unusual scoring line,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “You’ve got 3 (in the first quarter), 2 (in the third quarter), 2 in the fourth. I’ve never been around a game like that. But we’ll take it today.”
Iowa ranked seventh nationally with four defensive touchdowns last season, so the Hawkeyes are used to getting points from that side of the ball. And they needed them on a day when the offense struggled.
“The standard’s been set,” said linebacker Jack Campbell, who recorded one of the safeties and finished with 12 tackles.
The first safety came after Iowa’s Tory Taylor had his punt downed at the South Dakota State 1-yard line in the third quarter. One play later, Campbell grabbed running back Isaiah Davis after he took the handoff and brought him down one yard short of getting out of the end zone.
The second safety came in the fourth, when Iowa’s Joe Evans sacked quarterback Mark Gronowski in the end zone on a second-and-11 play.
“We’re trying to score as much as we can on the defensive side, however we can do it” said Iowa safety Quinn Schulte.
Spartans sputter in victory: Payton Thorne played well in spurts, allowing No. 15 Michigan State to earn a lopsided win over Western Michigan despite struggling for long stretches of the opener on both sides of the ball. Thorne capped three straight drives with touchdown passes in the first half and threw for a fourth score in the final quarter to help the Spartans pull away and beat the Broncos 35-13 on Friday night.
“We got a lot of work to do,” Michigan State coach Mel Tucker said. “But I like what I saw in the locker room after the game. We’re a hungry football team and we know we need to get better.”
After taking a 21-3 lead early in the second quarter, the Spartans allowed an average Mid-American Conference team to pull within eight points late in the third after outscoring them 10-0 in the quarter.
“We didn’t play very well in the third quarter,” Thorne said. “I don’t know the official stats. It was pretty bad.”
Maye’s 5 TDs lead UNC over Appalachian State:
Redshirt freshman Drake Maye continued his torrid start to the season, throwing for 352 yards and combining for five touchdowns as North Carolina outlasted Appalachian State 63-61 on Saturday despite surrendering 40 points in the fourth quarter.
Maye, the younger brother of former Tar Heels basketball star Luke Maye, has thrown a school-record nine touchdown passes in two career starts. He also ran for a score against the Mountaineers.
Chase Brice threw for 376 yards and six touchdowns for Appalachian State (0-1).
The two teams combined for 62 points and 504 yards — in the fourth quarter.
With the game tied at 49, Maye lofted a ball over the middle to D.J. Jones for a 42-yard touchdown pass on an all-out blitz by the Mountaineers to give North Carolina (2-0) the lead with 2:50 left in the game. App State responded with Brice throwing his fifth TD pass of the game, a 28-yard strike to Deshaun Davis with 31 seconds left. The Mountaineers went for the 2-point conversion — and the apparent win — but Brice’s pass sailed just over Davis’ head.
It seemed the game would end there, but UNC’s Bryson Nesbit returned the ensuing onside kick for a 43-yard touchdown — a mistake that gave the Mountaineers 31 seconds to try to score again. Sure enough, Brice found Kaedin Robinson for a 26-yard TD strike with 9 seconds left to cut the lead to 63-61. The Mountaineers went for 2 but Brice was stopped short of the end zone.
Dekkers shines in debut for Iowa State:
Hunter Dekkers made his debut as Iowa State’s starting quarterback Saturday and threw for 293 yards and four touchdowns in a 42-10 rout of Southeast Missouri.
Dekkers, who completed a total of 25 passes in two seasons as the Cyclones’ backup, finished 25 of 31 against the Redhawks, helping Iowa State to its most lopsided season-opening win since 2001.
Xavier Hutchinson caught a careerbest three touchdowns, finishing with 128 yards on eight receptions.
Rutgers rally passed Boston College:
Al-Shadee Salaam scored on a 22-yard run with 2:43 to play, lifting Rutgers to a 22-21 comeback victory over Boston College on Saturday in the schools’ season openers.
Rutgers had lost the last 11 meetings against Boston College, which holds a 20-7-1 edge in the series.
“They’re a young team and started the game with some young team mistakes and made some nervous errors, I guess,” Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano said.