IOWA CITY, Iowa – The University of Iowa football team defeated Rutgers, 22-0, on Saturday evening on Duke Slater Field at Kinnick Stadium. With the win Iowa clinched a share of the Big Ten West Division title.

The Hawkeyes outgained Rutgers, 402-127, and held the Scarlet Knights to just 34 rushing yards.

Deacon Hill was 20-for-31 on passing attempts for 223 yards and a touchdown. Leshon Williams led the rushing attack with 63 yards on 13 attempts.

“It’s just a rhythm that you get into,” said Hill. “Trust your fundamentals, trust your base and build rhythm. I trusted myself in what I was seeing and trusted what the coaches were telling me.”

Zach Ortwerth led Iowa with 54 receiving yards, Nico Ragaini had 48 yards and Addison Ostrenga had 47 yards.

Jay Higgins led the defense with eight tackles (two solo) and Nick Jackson had seven tackles (two solo). Quinn Schulte pulled in an Interception.

“We come here every Saturday and are so confident in the game plan,” said Higgins. “It’s easy to go out there and play hard. We know if we go out there and play hard and do our job, everything should be good.”

QUOTING KIRK FERENTZ

“Just really proud of our players, our staff, everybody involved. Total effort, and certainly it was a really good week for our football team, capped off today.

Nothing was easy out there today, and we had a lot of respect for Rutgers for obvious reasons, coming in with six wins, and they’ve been impressive watching them on tape.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I think Coach Schiano is really building a program over there. A lot of respect for them. Our guys played through some bumps during the course of the first half, left some opportunities out there. They kept playing, stayed focused.

I thought they were great at halftime, and certainly played probably our best second half of football since we got started here, and I thought last week probably was in that category. This one certainly was a little bit better.

Most notably the offense I think took a big step. We put points on the board in the second half, but even in the first half I think if you look what they did, we had field position that was not real good two times inside the 10. Still found a way to drive it out there and give Tory a chance to flip field position. We weren’t necessarily holding the field position the way we wanted to, but that was better in the second half certainly.

Just as the game kept going, thought our guys got more confident, and we did some good things out there.

Just in a nutshell, November football, I’ve said that before, it’s really where things kind of shape up or don’t shape up for football teams, and the biggest number one line on the list Monday was just talked about improvement. It’s incumbent on everybody to try to improve, coaches, players, and I’ve always believed that you can improve any week, not just early in the season or camp.

We wanted to take advantage of that, and we did see a lot of improvement today. It’s a residual thing. We’ll keep trying to build on that.

Thrilled to get our eighth win. Happy about that certainly, and again, mostly just can’t tell you how proud I am of our players. Got a good quality group of guys that show up every day with a great attitude, and they care about each other. I think that showed today.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Iowa got on the board first with 2:50 remaining in the first half as Drew Stevens connected on a 32-yard field goal to cap a 10 play 37-yard drive.
• The Hawkeyes added to their lead with a 43-yard field goal by Stevens with 4:18 in the third quarter. It capped a five play 54-yard drive that eclipsed 2:04.
• The Hawkeyes found the endzone with a four-yard rush up the middle by Jaziun Patterson. The touchdown ended a nine play, 54 yard drive that lasted 4:39. Iowa’s two-point conversion attempt was unsuccessful.
• Drew Stevens connected from 15-yards out with 5:43 remaining in the game after a 12-play drive by the Hawkeyes that took up 6:30 and covered 44 yards.
• After an interception by Quinn Schulte set the Hawkeyes up at the Rutgers’ nine-yard line, the Hawkeyes found the endzone three plays later. Deacon Hill connected with Kaleb Brown for a 10-yard score.

INDIVIDUAL NOTES

• QB Deacon Hill completed 20-of-31 attempts for a career-high 223 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.
  • Had a career-long 54-yard completion to TE Zach Ortwerth in the third quarter. It was Ortwerth’s first career reception.
  • Hill had a 10-yard touchdown pass to Kaleb Brown in the fourth quarter – his fourth TD pass of the season.
  • The 223 yards are the most passing yards for the team this season.
  • The 20 completions and attempts were both career-highs for Hill.
• TE Addison Ostrenga had a career high eight receptions for a career-best 47 yards.
  • Iowa’s tight ends accounted for 101 of the team’s 223 receiving yards.
• WR Kaleb Brown had a career-high three receptions for 27 yards, including his first career touchdown in the fourth quarter (10 yarder). Brown also had two rushes for 20 yards.
• RB Leshon Williams rushed for 63 yards on 13 attempts and RB Jaziun Patterson had 14 attempts for 53 yards, including his second touchdown of the season (and career) — a 4-yard score in the fourth quarter.
• RB Kaleb Johnson rushed for 54 yards on 10 carries – he had the longest rush of the day for 27 yards.
• DB Quinn Schulte had an interception in the fourth quarter and returned it 39 yards to the Rutgers 9. It was Schulte’s first interception of the season and third of his career.
• K Drew Stevens went 3-for-4 in field goal attempts, connecting from 32, 43 and 24 yards.
  • Stevens is 17-of-22 in field goal attempts this season and leads Iowa with 69 points.
  • It is Stevens’ third career game with three or more field goals.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

• Iowa’s defense shut out Rutgers – its first shutout of the season and the first since last season’s Music City Bowl against Kentucky.
  • It is the team’s first shutout in Big Ten play since 2019 (Northwestern)
  • It is the 16th shutout of the Ferentz era.
  • The Rutgers offense didn’t cross the 50-yard line.
• Iowa’s run defense limited Rutgers to 34 yards, 150 yards below its season average of 184.7.
  • Rutgers’ Kyle Monangai – the Big Ten’s leading rusher – was limited to 39 yards on 13 attempts.
• The Hawkeye defense limited Rutgers to 127 yards, its 24th consecutive game allowing 400 or fewer yards. It is the longest active streak nationally.
• The 127 total yards allowed is the fewest yards allowed since September 3, 2022 against South Dakota State (120 yards).
• Iowa’s defense has allowed one touchdown or less in eight of the first 10 games of 2023 and 17 of the last 23 games.
• Iowa has allowed 14 or fewer points in 16 of its last 23 games.
• Iowa’s defense has allowed just one touchdown in the last four games.
• Since the start of the 2015 season, Iowa is 70-2 when leading by eight points at any point in a game.
• Iowa’s offense put up 200+ yards passing and 100+ yards rushing for the first time since Northwestern in 2022 (220 passing/173 rushing).
• Iowa’s offense eclipsed 400 yards for the first time in the last 32 games.
• Rutgers won the toss and deferred to the second half; Iowa will receive. The Hawkeyes have played 311 games under head coach Kirk Ferentz. Iowa has opened the game on offense 228 times (147-81). The Hawkeyes have opened the game on defense 83 times (47-36).

UP NEXT

Iowa closes out its home slate Nov. 18, hosting Illinois at 2:30 p.m. (CT) inside Kinnick Stadium.