The anemic offenses might not have been the worst part of Iowa and Northwestern’s Big Ten clash on Saturday afternoon.
The two teams, which were scoreless at the half, battled with some turf issues at Wrigley Field, most notably in the fourth quarter.
A number of times throughout the final quarter, the officials on the field had to tamp down divots on the playing surface — which is normally used for Cubs baseball games but does get converted occasionally for football, the last time coming in 2021.
However, with football on the usual diamond, the field encountered some issues with some extra bodies out there.
After an 18-play drive in the fourth quarter, Northwestern failed to convert a fourth down after having trouble getting leverage on the ground with a quarterback sneak.
And with 5:49 left in the game, the grounds crew had to come out and fix a portion of the turf near one of the end zones.
Especially with the score at 7-0 in favor of Iowa at that point, there were plenty of jokesters on social media about the incident.
“Hawkeyes lead 7-0 in the bottom of the 8th and we have a TURF DELAY,” wrote one X user. “The army is now taking the field to assist in the repairs.”
“Come on, field. Nobody wants to be watching this any longer than necessary,” replied another.
“Lmao the turf is a catastrophe at Wrigley,” wrote another user.
Some were even angrier that the field was even used at all for a football game.
“Iowa and northwestern are playing at Wrigley field. Why do they still let football teams play on baseball fields. The turf they put over it falls apart instantly. Structural integrity of a nature valley bar lmao. Terrible idea,” an X user wrote.
After the delay, Northwestern, which hadn’t hit pay dirt all day, finally scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to even the score, but Iowa nailed a field goal in the waning seconds to squeak out a 10-7 win.
Neither team cracked 200 yards of total offense (170 for Northwestern and 169 for Iowa) in what was far from a barn burner.
At least in this game, unlike in 2010 when Northwestern hosted Illinois, both end zones were used, though neither team crossed into them all that often.
