That game was never in doubt after a 3 and out to start the 2h, followed by a 2 play Iowa TD drive, then answering Nebraska's last punch with a 1 play iowa touchdown drive.
The total yardage thing is funny. NU wasn't confident enough to commit to the run, Iowa dropped 6, 7, and sometimes 8 into coverage and said 'hear kity, kitty'. Basically Iowa said 'since you can't run effectively, you can throw all you want against numbers, on a very cold and windy day, with an 11 point deficit'....meanwhile we'll throw the ball a whopping 5 times the entire second half. Anyone watching, really watching, saw this approach result in 2 more picks, 3 more drops that should have been picks, a clock get milked without any element of offensive risk by the victors. After 1 minute and 21 seconds gone in the 3rd quarter, Nebraska never had the ball with a chance to take a lead.
If one wants to play a stat game - iowa 5.5 yds/carry, Nebraska 3.6. Iowa 6.1 yards per pass, nebraska 6.6. iowa scoring drives of 6,0,2,1 play = 28 points. there was no, NO, reason to push the envelope, rather just squeeze the life out of them as they continued to throw the ball with little chance of doing anything but spin their wheels between the 30s.
One could argue Nebraska wasn't good enough to make Iowa work very hard. The hardest part for Iowa was holding onto punts(which one was muffed setting up a score), holding onto potential interceptions that often looked like punts, and coming up to gang tackle receivers after they caught the ball in front of the majority of the defense.
One team played right into the other's hands, one didn't have to do much to take control, and exert then control.
