It was Matt Rodgers' last home game at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium and even though he was nursing an injured knee, nothing could have kept the senior from playing against Minnesota.
Rodgers, playing for the first time in three games, threw three touchdown passes Saturday to lead No. 9 Iowa to a 23-8 win over Minnesota on a snow-encrusted field as Hayden Fry got his 100th win as coach of the Hawekeyes."Could you believe Matt Rodgers threw for three touchdowns in that kind of weather?" Fry asked.
"He looked like an all-Big Ten quarterback to me. He did a fantastic job. He was so hyped up, I don't believe I could have tied him on the sideline.
"He wanted to play so badly, and he had a brace on his ankle and a brace on his knee," Fry said. "He said he felt great and looking at his performance, I think he did."
Iowa (10-1 overall, 7-1 Big Ten) finished alone in second place in the conference and will play BYU in the Dec. 30 Holiday Bowl. Minnesota (2-9, 1-7) failed to give coach John Gutekunst a victory after he announced his resignation earlier in the week.
The victory gave Fry a 100-54-4 mark in 13 years at Iowa City and was the seventh straight win for the Hawkeyes, matching a 7-0 start by the 1985 squad.
"I'm honored to be associated with 100 wins at Iowa," he said.
The Hawkeyes had not won seven consecutive Big Ten games since a 13-game win streak that began in 1920 and ended in 1923.
Only 32,500 fans ventured into the 70,322-seat Kinnick Stadium after a winter storm dumped several inches of snow overnight, and officials twice had to stop the game to appeal to fans to stop pelting them and players with snowballs.
"You always hate to see that happen," Gutekunst said.
Fry personally appealed to the student section to stop throwing snowballs, waving his arms and yelling, "Knock it off."
"I felt sorry for the officials," he said. "It's a shame a small number can create a bad image for a class football team."
Rodgers, meanwhile, had missed Iowa's last two games after hurting his knee against Ohio State on Nov. 2.
He ended the game with 21 completions in 34 attempts for 270 yards. Rodgers finished the year with 2,054 yards passing. Chuck Long is the only other quarterback in school history to pass for more than 2,000 yards in three consecutive seasons.
Rodgers hit Alan Cross with a 12-yard scoring pass to cap a 75-yard drive with 6:18 to play in the third quarter that gave Iowa a 10-0 lead.
The Hawkeyes led 3-0 at halftime on Jeff Skillett's 32-yard field goal as time expired.
Iowa increased the lead to 17-0 when Rodgers connected with Danan Hughes on a 45-yard TD pass to finish a 94-yard drive, the Hawkeyes' longest scoring drive of the year. Hughes caught a 32-yard TD pass from Rodgers 3:15 later to put the game out of reach.
Minnesota's only score came with 1:33 to play when backup quarterback Scott Schaffner threw a 19-yard TD pass to Paul Hopewell.
The victory over Minnesota was Iowa's first in three years.