Penn State football’s defense held Iowa to just 70 rushing yards in a gritty 17-12 victory at Kinnick Stadium Saturday night.

While the Nittany Lion defensive line — also known as the Wild Dogs — has been dominant as a group all season, Robert Windsor was clearly the MVP of Sean Spencer’s unit against Iowa. The senior finished the night with six total tackles, 2.5 stops for a loss, and 1.5 sacks. He was a huge factor in consistently stuffing Iowa’s running backs and plugged up any sort of running room in between the tackles.

Despite the fact that he threw for 286 yards and a touchdown, Iowa quarterback Nate Stanley was never truly comfortable in the pocket. He was hurried five times throughout the game, and Windsor had a team-leading two of those hurries on top of his 1.5 sacks.

Windsor’s biggest hurry of the night came within the final few minutes of the game. The Hawkeyes were trailing by four points in the fourth quarter when Stanley dropped back to take a deep shot, but the quarterback was demolished by Windsor as he released the ball. The hit resulted in complete airmail of his wide receiver and the ball sailed into Jaquan Brisker’s arms.

That massive turnover gave Penn State’s offense the ball on Iowa’s 34-yard line, and the drive ended in a Noah Cain rushing touchdown just a few plays later.

Tonight was clearly the best game of Windsor’s 2019 season thus far, but it could be a sign of more things to come. The Wisconsin native had just one total tackle for loss and a sack heading into tonight’s game, but he nearly doubled those numbers tonight.

The defensive tackle was selected as one of Penn State’s captains for the first time this season tonight, but we think James Franklin should make Windsor a captain every week. He was selected for the role against Wisconsin last year — as the Nittany Lions were welcoming the team from his home state — and he played the best game of his 2018 season, as he had five tackles, two for loss, and two sacks against the Badgers.

Franklin was proud of the entire defense’s effort during his post-game press conference.

“Our defense has been playing great all year long, and we were able to lean on them tonight,” Franklin said. “That was big-time for us.”