Can Iowa State disrupt Iowa's winning recipe?
No. 10 Iowa at No. 9 Iowa State (4:30 p.m., ABC)Like plenty of in-state rivalries, Iowa-Iowa State is always good for some bitterness and intensity. It hasn't necessarily been good for genuine qualitythrough the years, however. Between 1977 and 2016, the Hawkeyes and Cyclones both finished with winning records only five times -- 1986, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2009. (This was primarily, but not always, due to ISU failing to hold up its end of that bargain.) The games were frequently close but rarely good; there's a reason why the college football internet took to labeling this game ¡El Assico!.
Granted, the pivotal play in the teams' last meeting was a muffed punt, which doesn't scream "EPIC QUALITY!" but the last three meetings have seen good teams playing down-to-the-wire games. And now comes the biggest meeting of all: For the first time ever, they will meet as top-10 teams. It is the Cy-Hawk to end all Cy-Hawks.
Iowa State's rise under Matt Campbell has been incredible. This was one of the more consistently dormant power-conference programs -- if promotion and relegation were a thing in college football, they would have been a second- or even third-division team for much of their history -- and they finished in the AP top 10 for the first time ever last fall. (Similarly, they started this season there for the first time ever.) He has yet to beat Iowa, but Campbell's Cyclones have come achingly close. To finally finish the job, they're going to have to force the Hawkeyes off of their winning script.
No team in college football is both dominant and openly flawed in the way that Kirk Ferentz's Iowa is. As I wrote in Monday's Week 1 review column, the Hawkeyes are so good at the things they always want to be good at -- line dominance, big-play prevention, big punting -- that quarterback Spencer Petras' mediocre stats don't seem to matter.
In Iowa's season-opening romp over Indiana, the Hawkeyes dominated the line of scrimmage -- their running backs averaged 5.3 yards per carry to IU's 2.9 -- and they allowed Indiana only three gains of 15+ yards. Only four FBS teams managed fewer. Throw in some downright phenomenal punting from Tory Taylor (49.5 yards per kick), and Iowa was in full flight despite once again getting very little from Petras. He was 5-for-5 on passes at or behind the line of scrimmage and a dismal 8-for-22 on all others.
Iowa has engineered six top-15 finishes under Ferentz despite rarely enjoying elite quarterback play. This is nothing new. But the Hawkeyes have rarely been this good at Iowa things and this bad at throwing the football, and because of that, their own traits will define every game they play. Can Iowa State figure out how to get star running back Breece Hall on track against this Iowa run front? Can the Cyclones force the Hawkeyes to the air and punish them for it? Can they at least make sure that Taylor is punting from deep in his own territory?
