BIG TEN ROUNDUP : With Taylor Back at Helm, Michigan Defeats Iowa, 26-12

Michael Taylor, playing for the first time since the season opener, passed for two touchdowns and ran for another to lead No. 5 Michigan to a 26-12 Big Ten victory over Iowa Saturday at Iowa City, Iowa.

Freshman quarterback Elvis Grbac led Michigan to four victories while Taylor was recovering from a back injury suffered in a Sept. 18 loss to Notre Dame.

But Taylor started Saturday and made his presence felt, completing 11 of 15 passes for 179 yards and keeping the Hawkeyes off balance with his quickness and running ability.

“I think I did all right,” said Taylor, who played the entire game. “I took what the defense gave me. Except for one bad pass and one bad read, I think I was able to take what they gave me and go from there.”

Taylor, who returned to practice two weeks ago, helped Michigan to its first victory at Iowa since 1982.

The Wolverines improved to 5-1 overall and remained tied with Illinois for first place in the Big Ten at 3-0. Iowa is 3-3 and 1-2.

Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler said last week that Taylor probably would play Saturday, although it was thought that Grbac would start.

“We didn’t know whether Taylor would be ready or not,” Schembechler said. “You’ve got to understand that Taylor had very little preseason practice. He played the Notre Dame game and was rusty and turned the ball over twice and had a bad arm, then got hurt.

“I thought at the end of the second week (of practice) if he had sufficiently developed, we wanted to play him. Frankly, I told him he’d start this morning.”

Schembechler said Taylor played well, but he would have felt comfortable with Grbac playing.

“But the experience for Michael Taylor will pay off in the long run,” he said, “if we can get him back to where he was before he got hurt.”

Leading, 9-6, at halftime, Michigan got touchdowns 3:24 apart in the third quarter. Taylor scored on a two-yard, fourth-down run with 5:49 left in the quarter to cap a 10-play, 63-yard drive. He flipped a screen pass that Tony Boles turned into a 45-yard touchdown play at the 2:25 mark.

Boles weaved his way through the Iowa defense down the right side of the field and dragged safety Eddie Polly the final three yards into the end zone as the Wolverines moved ahead, 23-6.

Iowa cut the deficit to 23-12 on Matt Rodgers’ 18-yard pass to Peter Marciano.

Michigan, which punted only once, then controlled the ball for more than six minutes before J.D. Carlson kicked a 22-yard field goal with 8:58 to play.

Ohio State 21, Purdue 3--Carlos Snow rushed for 149 yards and two touchdowns as the Buckeyes beat the Boilermakers in an error-filled game at Columbus, Ohio.

Snow, a junior, carried 18 times and scored on touchdown runs of one yard and three yards as Ohio State improved to 4-2 and 2-1.

The victory marked the first time Ohio State has won two games in a row in John Cooper’s two seasons as head coach.

The Boilermakers (1-5 and 0-3) had seven fumbles and lost one, while Ohio State fumbled three times and lost all of them.

Indiana 28, Minnesota 18--Anthony Thompson rushed for a career-high 216 yards and three touchdowns, moving within one touchdown of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. career record, to lead the Hoosiers at Bloomington, Ind.

Thompson, the nation’s rushing and scoring leader this season, had both of Indiana’s first-half touchdowns and scored again on a 16-yard run with 29 seconds to go.

His 58 regular-season touchdowns is one short of the record set by Army’s Glenn Davis in 1946 and tied by Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett in 1976. Overall, including bowl games which are not counted in NCAA statistics, Thompson has 61 career touchdowns and a Big Ten record 370 points.

Both teams are 4-2 and 2-1.

Wisconsin 35, Northwestern 31--Running back Leon Hunt rushed for a career-high 116 yards and scored three touchdowns as the Badgers held off a late charge by the Wildcats at Madison, Wis.

Wisconsin is 2-4 and 1-2; Northwestern 0-6 and 0-3.

Wisconsin quarterback Lionell Crawford, benched after the first two games this season, got the start and scored two touchdowns and rushed for 73 yards before hurting his knee late in the game.