Iowa
Iowa exploits flaws on both sides of the ball, leaves Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell ‘dumbfounded’ by loss
MADISON – Luke Fickell stood in front of the media after a loss at Alabama a few weeks ago and talked about the need for him to stay positive with his young team.
And while there is a need for that from the coach more than ever, the reality is that these are dark days for the Wisconsin Badgers football program.
Its 37-0 loss to Iowa on Saturday Oct. 11 at Camp Randall Stadium was the Badgers’ fourth straight loss this season and eighth straight Big Ten defeat dating to last year.
The outcome was stunning because UW had this game circled on the schedule. The team was humbled in a 42-10 loss in Iowa City last year. The Hawkeyes’ visit to Camp Randall was supposed to be a day of atonement. Instead, the Badgers lost by an even larger margin while suffering their first shutout at the hands of the Hawkeyes since 1996.
Overall the game marked the first time Wisconsin was shut out since a 59-0 loss to Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game in 2014.
The loss left Fickell in search of answers.
“I apologized to our guys to not have them ready, to not have them ready,” he said. “I’m dumbfounded in a lot of ways.”
Badgers offense equals season-low 209 total yards
The team’s struggles on offense once again made the game difficult for the rest of the team.
The Badgers faced the 113th-ranked offense in the nation and made the game easy for it with three turnvers during the first 16 minutes. As a result, Iowa needed to gain only 46 yards to score 17 of its first 20 points.
The UW defense, which allowed 329 rushing yards to the Hawkeyes last season, allowed just 210 this time. That total, however, is deceiving. Iowa’s 5.8 yards per carry compared to the 6.1 yards it averaged against the Badgers last season shows a performance very comparable to a year ago.
That said, the UW’s three early turnovers didn’t give the team a chance.
Anyone who has watched the Badgers this season knew that a deficit of that magnitude would be very difficult to overcome. The Badgers haven’t scored more than twice in three previous games. And in each of those contests that second score came late in the fourth quarter, long after the game was decided and the opponent began pulling key players.
“Not that you can go back and change it, but I hope and believe that had that not started the way it did (with) the turnovers, at least it would have been a hell of a lot different game,” Fickell said. “I’m not saying they’re not a better team than we are. I just think that it’s not fair that we were not able to put ourselves in a position where we could make it a damn football game.”
QB Hunter Simmons’ turnovers were debilitating
Southern Illinois transfer Hunter Simmons finished the night with 82 yards on 8-for-21 passing and the dubious distinction of having two passes picked off by defensive linemen.
The first came off a pass deflected by defensive end Brian Allen and caught with a diving effort by Bryce Hawthrone at the UW 24 with 3 minutes 52 seconds to go in the first quarter. Defensive tackle Aaron Graves got the second interception when he dropped into coverage and right into the path of Simmons’ throw to Vinny Anthony. Graves returned the pick 35 yards to the Badgers 1 at the 1:45 mark of the first quarter.
Simmons’ third turnover, a lateral he threw with the defense bearing down on him, gave Iowa a first down at the Badgers’ 28 50 seconds into the second quarter.
Turnovers at the QB position by Danny O’Neil and now Simmons have put the Badgers in tough spots this season.
One of the beauties of first-year offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes’ offense is its ability to be productive without high-level quarterback play. That hasn’t come to fruition yet at Wisconsin, which has been hit with the injury of Billy Edwards (sprained knee) at the position and erratic play of backups O’Neil and Simmons. The Badgers’ 209 total yards Saturday equaled a season low and marked their fourth straight game with fewer than 300.
“This is not going to be an easy fix,” Fickell said. “Pound the rock is the idea. Something has to break at some point and time. I’m not going to say tonight was an opportunity for that, but every night, every Saturday is an opportunity for that and it did not happen tonight.”
UW’s woes come as once-struggling Big Ten programs thrive
As far as bad losses go, add this to a list that in the Fickell era that includes the 20-14 loss at Indiana in 2023, setbacks in 2024 to Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota and losses to Alabama, Maryland and Iowa this year.
Wisconsin’s poor performances are coming at a time when once-struggling programs such as Indiana and Illinois are thriving. UCLA has wins over Penn State and at Michigan State since firing DeShaun Foster. Northwestern upset Penn State on the road Saturday.
While the Badgers made improvements to elements of their roster, the results show that they have not outpaced what other teams are doing.
The situation leaves Fickell with a 15-17 record at Wisconsin facing the biggest challenge of his career and little reason to believe change is around the corner. Opportunity, however, knocks the next two weeks when UW hosts No. 1 Ohio State on Oct. 18 and travels to No. 2 Oregon on Oct. 25.
Saturday night the coach was asked if he believed he can turn around the program.
“There is nothing I can say out here publically that is any different. What matters is what is said in that (locker) room,” Fickell said. “I don’t fault you for asking. I don’t think people should think anything different, but the truth of the mattter is this is not an easy fix and we’ve got a hell of a long way to go.”
Iowa
Zach Lahn projected to win Iowa GOP governor primary, upsetting Trump’s pick in a state Democrats hope to flip
Zach Lahn will win the Republican primary for Iowa governor, CBS News projects, overcoming a Trump-backed congressman and setting up a November contest against Democrat Rob Sand that could be one of this year’s most competitive gubernatorial races.
Lahn — a farmer and businessman who has touted his ties to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement — prevailed over a crowded GOP field on Tuesday. Sand, who serves as state auditor, ran for the Democratic nomination unopposed.
His victory bucks the recent winning streak of Trump-backed candidates and marks an upset over Rep. Randy Feenstra, who didn’t attend any primary debates and was viewed by many observers as a frontrunner. President Trump endorsed Feenstra last week, calling him “MAGA all the way,” and several top Iowa GOP figures backed him.
Feenstra conceded late Tuesday night, saying in a speech surrounded by his family that the outcome “wasn’t what I wanted.”
Describing himself as a sixth-generation Iowan, Lahn owns a family farm and runs the agriculture, real estate and technology investment firm Homeplace Ventures. He previously worked for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. He’s running on a populist-inflected platform that he branded “Iowa First” and has said he wants to boost local ownership of farmland, stem the flow of younger Iowans out of the state and address Iowa’s high cancer rate.
“I fear every day we are losing the Iowa we love,” Lahn said in his victory speech Tuesday, castigating out-of-state investors that he says “treat Iowa land like it’s a commodity instead of our inheritance.”
Lahn was endorsed last year by MAHA Action, a group founded by allies of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he picked up support from the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action last week. He was also endorsed by former Rep. Steve King, who was known for incendiary comments about race before Feenstra ousted him in a 2020 primary.
Three other candidates also ran: former Iowa Department of Administrative Services Director Adam Steen, state Rep. Eddie Andrews and former state Rep. Brad Sherman.
Lahn will now face Sand, a two-term state auditor who defeated a GOP incumbent in 2018 after working in the state attorney general’s office.
Sand has focused his campaign on government accountability and faulted Republicans for the state’s economic issues, while pitching universal pre-K and criticizing a school voucher program introduced by GOP officials. He has also sought to cultivate a moderate image on social issues, as Republicans try to cast him as a liberal in centrist’s clothing.
In a campaign video late Tuesday, Sand said Republican voters are “welcome in this campaign,” adding that the state’s political system is “broken” and “all you would get with Zach Lahn it is more of the same.”
Once considered a swing state, Iowa has trended sharply red in recent years as Democrats increasingly struggle on rural Midwestern terrain. Mr. Trump won the state three times in a row, including by a 13-point margin in 2024, and GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds won reelection by 18 points four years ago. Iowa hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in two decades, and Sand is the only statewide elected Democrat, after he won reelection by fewer than 3,000 votes in 2022.
But Democrats are hopeful that a challenging political environment for Republicans, both nationally and in Iowa, could make them more competitive in the midwestern state. The Cook Political Report has rated the Iowa gubernatorial race a tossup, one of five states with that distinction this year, and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics says the race leans red.
Reynolds — who has led the state since 2017 — has one of the lowest approval ratings of any governor nationwide. Iowa farmers also struggled last year after the trade war with China caused Beijing to cut American soybean imports, pushing down prices of one of Iowa’s most widely grown crops, and the war with Iran has caused a run-up in fuel and fertilizer prices.
Reynolds declined to run for reelection this year, setting up Iowa’s first gubernatorial election without an incumbent in the race since 2006.
Lahn lent his campaign $2 million last year, but is heading into the general election at a fundraising disadvantage. His campaign had just over $700,000 on hand as of mid-May, compared to nearly $18.3 million for the Sand campaign. Sand’s wife runs a sizable food and health products company founded by her family called the Lauridsen Group, and the Democrat’s campaign coffers have been bolstered by millions in contributions from his in-laws.
Sand raised about $9.7 million between the start of the year and mid-May, just over $3 million of which came from members of his wife’s family. Lahn raised just under $1 million.
Beyond the governor’s race, Iowa also has an open Senate contest after Ernst declined to seek reelection, drawing interest from Democrats, though Republicans likely have a sizable edge. Democrats are also heavily targeting two of Iowa’s four House seats, including the 1st District, where incumbent GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2024.
Iowa
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