Northwestern University Athletics
Football Falls to Iowa
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
October 10, 1998
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Randy Reiners, making his first start since the season-opener, threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns Saturday to lift Iowa to a 26-24 victory over Northwestern.
Reiners, a junior, who hasn't played since Iowa beat Central Michigan on Sept. 5, started in place of freshman Kyle McCann, who was out with an ankle injury.
The Hawkeyes (3-3, 2-1 Big Ten) ended a three-game losing streak against Northwestern (2-4, 0-3), a team they had beaten 21 consecutive times before those losses.
Reiners, who started four of Iowa's last five games last season before losing his job to McCann completed 17-of-30 passes and had an interception.
Northwestern came back from a 17-0 deficit and tied the game with 19 seconds left in the third quarter on Gavin Hoffman's 66-yard touchdown pass to D'Wayne Bates.
With less than two minutes remaining and Iowa leading 26-17, Bates outjumped three Hawkeyes for a 29-yard reception to convert a fourth-and-21 that gave the Wildcats a first down on the Iowa 25.
On the next play, Hoffman hit John Burden with a TD pass and the extra point by Brian Gowin, who set the school scoring mark earlier in the game, chopped Iowa's lead to two with 1:13 remaining.
Joe Slattery recovered Gowin's onside kick, however, and Iowa ran out the clock.
With the score at 17-all, Hoffman, who completed 17-of-26 for 250 yards, made a critical fourth-quarter error. Playing from the Northwestern 2, he intentionally threw the ball away while being pressured in the end zone by Ryan Loftin.
The play went for a safety for the Hawkeyes and gave them a 19-17 lead with 13:54 to play.
Iowa got the ball on the ensuing punt and Reiners, facing a third-and-7, scrambled away from two tacklers and hit Kevin Kasper with a 49-yard TD pass.
Reiners earlier connected with Kahlil Hill on a 23-yard scoring pass and Ladell Betts' 2-yard TD run gave the Hawkeyes a 14-0 lead in the opening quarter.
Iowa, worst in the league in rushing with a 72-yard average, gained 122 yards on the ground. Betts accounted for 112 of those yards while catching nine passes for 96 yards. It was the first time this season that an Iowa running back had run for 100 yards in a game.
Gowins set the school scoring record when he kicked a 30-yard field goal to narrow Iowa's lead to 17-10 with 57 second left in the period. The field goal gave him 224 points, eclipsing the previous record of 220 points set by Darnell Autry from 1994-96. Gowins kicked two more extra points later in the game to run his total to 226 points.
By GREG SMITH
Associated Press Writer
