IOWA CITY -- With three seconds left, fresh off a strip sack from Max Llewellyn and the game tied at 10, Iowa junior kicker Drew Stevens drilled a 53-yard kick to send the Hawkeyes home with the 13-10 victory over Big Ten rival Nebraska on Friday night.

The kick gave Iowa its ninth win in the last ten games against the Cornhuskers, and it was the fourth time since 2018 that Iowa has had a game-winning field goal against the Huskers.

A year ago in this game, Stevens missed field goals of 30 and 24 yards in Memorial Stadium. On the final field goal try of the game, Kirk Ferentz put in Marshal Meeder, a backup transfer kicker from Central Michigan, to attempt the game-winner.

WATCH: Marshall Meeder Hits Game-Winning FG for Iowa

A year later, Stevens got his redemption story.

"Drew has done nothing but mature. He's worked hard. He's earned everything that he has gotten," Ferentz said of his kicker postgame. "He's done the hard work. He kicked with great confidence last week in windy conditions, and tonight that wasn't a chip shot. I think all of us felt like, 'Hey, he'll do it.'"

Stevens reflected on the moment from last year, saying it made Friday's kick all the sweeter.

"This means everything," he said. "It sucks when somebody else is out there doing a job, I mean, I'm going to be be honest. That does suck, especially when you train all year round. This one felt really good, but I was confident, ready to go out there and do it."

Funnily enough, he didn't even remember the kick, and "nothing" was going through his mind before the game-winning boot.

"It's a hard feeling to explain," he said. "I mean, it happened last year, like Northwestern, or it's like a blackout. It's hard to explain, but like the second you leave that sideline, you're just acting on what you practiced."

Ferentz said all the practice Stevens has put in culminated in the victorious kick.

"In general he practices well, but I think everyone knows the maturity," Ferentz said. "He's a much different player than he was last November, and his teammates all know that, and the way he has been performing, so that's why everybody is confident in him. He's earned that."

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His teammates were confident as well.

"I had no doubt," senior linebacker Nick Jackson said. "You've seen his kicks this year. It looks like a 55-yarder has 10-15 more yards to spare."

Stevens even got a practice field goal attempt when Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule attempted to ice him with the Huskers' final time out.

"The first one looked like money," fellow senior linebacker Jay Higgins said. "The first one looked so good, I think that helped us. Letting him get a practice one."

"That was really good coaching [calling the timeout]," Jackson added.

Jackson and Higgins didn't feel the need to share any words of encouragement to their kicker before he trotted out on the field.

"Oh heck no!" Higgins laughed.

"There's nothing that needs to be said to Drew," Jackson added. "I think people take him for granted, because you just get one shot at it. ... If you miss a kick, you've got to sit on it for a while. He goes out there and executes -- five field goals last week, and two big ones tonight. A 52-yard field goal in 20 degree weather, that's goes without saying."

Even Iowa's head man didn't feel the need to chime in before his kicker's game-winning attempt.

"Right, wrong, or indifferent, I kind of let those guys go. They're in their own zone. They don't need me stating the obvious, like, ‘You can do this’ or ‘Go get it’."

And there clearly wasn't any need for last-minute encouragement. Stevens was ready for the moment.

"That was the most tired I've been in a football game," Stevens said of his postgame celebration. "People ask me, 'Do you plan your celebrations?' and that one we were actually talking about at the second quarter or something. I'm like, 'Dude, we should go lead the team down to the trophy if we hit it,' and then, Max [Llewellyn] basically takes the ball from Mahomes Jr. [Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola], and then, here we go."

Moments later, Stevens had added himself to the increasingly long list of kickers to convert a game-winning field goal to help Iowa defeat Nebraska.