MIAMI — For a month, all Iowa had been hearing about was Georgia Tech’s spread option attack and how effective it was at beating teams.
On this night inside Land Shark Stadium, it would be the Hawkeye defense dictating the tempo of the 2010 FedEx Orange Bowl, as No. 10 Iowa defeated the ninth-ranked Yellow Jackets, 24-14.
Leading the way for the Hawkeyes was junior defensive end Adrian Clayborn, who just weeks after announcing he’d be back for his senior season, stepped up in the spotlight again. The St. Louis native finished with nine solo tackles and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
“Every time he goes out there and plays, it’s unbelievable,” said senior linebacker Pat Angerer, who finished with 10 tackles himself. “He’s a hell of a player, one of the best players in the country.”
Georgia Tech came into this game averaging 307 yards on the ground per contest. On Tuesday, the Yellow Jackets were held to a total of 155 yards of offense.
Like in most of Georgia Tech’s games, junior B-back Jonathan Dwyer was its leading rusher. But he only had 49 yards rushing against Iowa, and at halftime, he only had six yards on the ground.
Also struggling both on the ground and through the air was junior quarterback Josh Nesbitt, who had a total of 40 yards rushing and only completed 2-of-9 passes for 12 yards and an interception in the fourth quarter made by senior linebacker A.J. Edds with the Hawkeyes only ahead by a field goal.
In fact, Georgia Tech went its opening six possessions ending with punts, and didn’t have a single first down until late in the second quarter on a 16-yard run by junior A-back Anthony Allen.
After the game, all of the players credited defensive coordinator Norm Parker for devising up a solid game plan for stopping the Yellow Jacket offense.
“He put together a great plan for us, and we executed it. That’s pretty much the reason why we stopped it,” Clayborn said. “I mean, without Coach Parker, we wouldn’t have been able to work our blocks and get off and make tackles.”
While Georgia Tech players looked at the Iowa linebacking corps of Angerer, A.J. Edds, and junior Jeremiha Hunter as being the big reasons for Iowa’s success defensively, they were looking at the defensive line as the group of players making it happen in Miami.
“The D-Line kept their linemen off of us so we can flow to the ball,” Edds said. “I think we played responsible, disciplined football as far as our assignments. I can see where playing them with a week to prepare would be tough to do because it took us a month and we still had some things that we weren’t exactly sure on.”
It was a dominating performance by a defense that got help early on with Iowa building a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and playing ahead for most of the evening. And it was an outing that made head coach Kirk Ferentz take notice.
“The fact that Adrian won the MVP in a BCS bowl, it doesn’t happen too often when a defensive lineman dominates the way he did,” Ferentz said. “Everybody played great football. That’s what it takes against a team like Georgia Tech. They put the pressure on all 11 guys.”
— by Brendan Stiles
