Iowa State-Iowa Prediction

For the second straight week, the Big Ten is involved in several of the biggest college football games on the schedule, and there’s no better time than the present to preview the Iowa State-Iowa predictions and odds ahead of the annual CyHawk rivalry game on Saturday. The No. 9 Cyclones were heavy favorites against Northern Iowa in Week 1, but managed to win by just six points No. 10 Iowa, however, dismantled an Indiana team many were expecting to continue their upward trend from a season ago. Although the Cyclones are the favorites for the CyHawk Game, the public is backing the underdog and the under. Does our Iowa State-Iowa prediction match up with that?

Longtime college sports writer Rob Dauster, the co-founder of The Field of 68 and The Field of 12 Network is here to break down the matchup and provide his Iowa State-Iowa prediction for Week 2 of the college football season.

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IOWA STATE-IOWA PREDICTION:

#9 IOWA STATE CYCLONES (1-0) vs. #10 IOWA HAWKEYES
GAME: 4:30 p.m. ET, ABC
MONEYLINE: Iowa State -200 ML, Iowa +163 ML
SPREAD: Iowa State -4.5
TOTAL: 46.5

IOWA STATE-IOWA PUBLIC TRENDS:
IOWA STATE ML: 21% handle, 28% bets
IOWA STATE SPREAD: 37% handle, 29% bets
Over: 12% handle, 29% bets

This is going to sound weird, I know, but I feel better about the team that is coming off of an unconvincing win against Northern Iowa than I do about the team that just knocked off a top 20 team in the country, 34-6.

Yup, I’m going full fade of the Hawkeyes here. It feels like it’s basketball season all over again.

For me, the logic is this: Iowa’s offense has some issues. I don’t think Spencer Petras is good enough to be able to keep the Hawkeyes in a shootout. “But Rob,” you ask, “how can you say that after they put up 34 points on Indiana?” Well, 14 of those 34 points came from Iowa’s defense. And while their numbers offensively looked decent enough at the end of the day, the majority of the damage was done on one big run from Tyler Goodson on the first drive of the game. For a team that is built about a ground and pound philosophy, there just wasn’t all that much ground pounding.

Now, I get it. They were up 28-3 at the half. Michael Penix did not look himself. Indiana looked like Old Indiana. This game was over midway through the second quarter. It was very easy for Kirk Ferentz to take his foot off the gas.

All I’m saying here is that I think that the combination of Matt Campbell, Brock Purdy, and Breece Hall makes the Cyclones a legit top ten team, and I can easily chalk off a sluggish opening day performance as a look-ahead game. We love fading teams in those spots for these specific reasons. What this means is that a team that I think is going to be overrated by the public (Iowa) after Week 1 will be playing on the road against a team that will be underrated by the public (Iowa State) after Week 1 when the latter is, in my mind, clearly a better football team than the former.

Cyclones by a tuddy.