The defining moment of the Gophers' 35-7 loss to Iowa on Friday came with 19 seconds to go. But it wasn't a Hail Mary touchdown or a game-saving interception.
No, it was a quartet of timeouts that illustrated just how petty this border rivalry has become.
See, the Gophers trailed 35-0 at TCF Bank Stadium, still cemented to the starting line with the Hawkeyes but a speck in the distance. Their most recent shutout, a 2017 drop to fellow rival Wisconsin, seemed to loom over Gophers coach P.J. Fleck, who was desperate not to relive such a fate — especially against the one Big Ten West team he has yet to beat. So he called a timeout, hoping to set up a face-saving score from Iowa's 4.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz must have taken some offense at that — running back Tyler Goodson even called out the Gophers for "playing games" — and proceeded to cycle through three consecutive timeouts in an instantly iconic display of Midwestern passive-aggressiveness.
"They called a timeout, I guess to look at what we're doing and reconsider. So we just kind of wanted to make sure we got a good look at what they were doing," Ferentz said. " … Figured we'd take Floyd with us and leave the timeouts here."
While the Gophers did eventually score that final touchdown on a Rashod Bateman catch, it was far, far too late to relocate the Floyd of Rosedale trophy from Iowa's weight room, where it has remained since 2015, marking Iowa's longest streak in the 114-game history.
In fact, this was the Gophers' worst loss to Iowa since a 55-0 bashing at the Metrodome in 2008.
"We didn't deserve to bring [the pig] back here, didn't play well enough to get it," Fleck said. "This is another scar. And scars remind us of where we've been to get to where we want to go."