Iowa Hawkeyes Football: Iowa State Cyclones Game Preview

This week, the Iowa Hawkeyes play the Iowa State Cyclones for the 73rd time. Iowa is coming off a dominating win over the Northern Illinois Huskies while Iowa State is coming off its own impressive win vs the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks. 

Iowa State has a new coach in Jimmy Rogers, who previously coached at Washington State. He is ISU’s fifth head coach in Kirk Ferentz’s 28 years at the helm of Iowa. 

Northern Illinois is…not good. So it’s hard to say how much we really know about the 2026 incarnation of the Hawkeyes. Despite this, I feel confident in saying that Iowa has a dominant offensive line, a strong rushing game and–gasp–playmaker pass catchers in DJ Vonnahme and Tony Diaz. And the defense under Phil Parker will, at worst, be very good. 

Meanwhile SEMO is also…not good. But ISU also demonstrated solid big-play receivers and a good–though how good remains to be seen–defense. And we already know their kicker. 

This is a game, on paper, that Iowa should win. But games aren’t played on paper. And older Iowa fans remember the El Assico matchups of 2002, 2007 and 2014, all games Iowa should have won on paper.

Coming out of last week, most people felt Hank Brown had a strong game and easily won the starting job. I agree he was better than Jeremy Hecklinksi, but just barely. Firstly, Hank Brown’s mechanics broke down when he was under pressure, which he rarely was. Secondly, the Hawkeyes’ first drive is scripted, meaning they know what they’re going to run, and they practice it, before the game starts. After that, on-the-fly playcalling starts.

Hank Brown had a good first drive going 4-for-5 for 39 yards and a touchdown pass. He did well on the next two drives, but let’s face it, those two drives were the Kamari Moulton show. For the remainder of the game Brown was 5-for-12 for 52 yards. Against Northern Illinois. Hardly world beating. 

Meanwhile, Iowa State is going to blitz. A lot. Last year, Wazzou blitzed a lot, and ISU did the same last week. It will complicate Iowa’s zone rushing scheme, but more notably, it will create pressure against the pass. The pressure may or may not get to Iowa’s quarterbacks, but Brown does not have a strong track record when he is pressured. And Hecklinski has no track record. 

Welcome to the big time boys.

Against SEMO, Iowa State registered six sacks and 12 tackles-for-loss. Meanwhile, the Hawkeyes’ offense allowed 0 sacks and four TFL, and all of the TFL came in the fourth quarter during garbage time. It’s hard to know what to take away from the NIU game because NIU is a bad football team, but it is safe to say that, if it stays healthy, this offensive line is going to be good. Does the same goe for the Iowa State defensive line?

The biggest matchup will be left tackle Trevor Lauck against defensive end Isaac “Bobby” Terrell. Terrell, a Wazzou transfer, accounted for three of ISU’s sacks. He started six games last year, but did he make a huge jump from his junior to his senior year or is he the beneficiary of playing a weak opponent?

Meanwhile, Trevor Lauck is projected as a first-or-second-day draft pick, and he didn’t allow a sack last year, his first as a starter. 

This will be a huge step up in competition for both sides of the line. But the ISU defensive line is projection; are they as good as they looked against weak competition? The Iowa offensive line is more solidified. According to Phil Steele, coming into the season, they are the No. 15 line in the country and the second-best offensive line ISU will face all season (Cincinnati is No. 14). 

Either way, they will have to protect their quarterback and open running lanes against a salty defensive line.

On paper, the Iowa State rush defense looks dominant. Against SEMO, it allowed 67 yards on 45 carries. However, when you take out the sack yards, the ISU defense allowed 4.1 yards-per-carry though much of that came on one play early in the 4th quarter. Again, I don’t know much about SEMO, but I know its not Oregon.

What we do know, as mentioned earlier, is that ISU is going to be aggressive. That means they’ll get TFL. It also means big plays will be there for the Iowa offense. My guess is that the ISU D gets some run stops early, but stopping Iowa’s rushing game consistently means strong technique, over and over and over, from the opening snap to the final gun. I don’t see Iowa State pulling that off. By the second half, the rushing yards should be there.

It’s rare that Iowa faces a disadvantage on special teams, and they don’t necessarily face a disadvantage here on the whole, but Iowa fans know ISU kicker Kyle Konrardy. I won’t bring up bad memories, but he made some kicks in both 2024 and 2025 that Iowa fans would rather forget. 

Meanwhile Iowa’s kicker is sophomore Caden Buhr who, coming into last week’s game, hadn’t attempted a field goal or extra point. He started last week off rough, missing his first XP attempt and his first field goal attempt. After that, he did settle down hitting all his kicks. 

The last two Iowa-Iowa State games have been won by three points or fewer. Three of the last four. Four of the last six. Five of the last eight. And I could go on. 

This is all compounded by Iowa’s red zone woes last week in which Iowa went 3-for-5 in the red zone including throwing a pick and a stalled drive. Again, against Northern Illinois.

So the big question, if the game is on the line Buhr has to kick a 54-yarder, how much confidence do you have? Because I think ISU fans are pretty confident in their man.

Coming into the season, Iowa’s biggest question was defensive line and especially defensive end. But against NIU, the line, and especially the ends, held up admirably. The defense allowed a total of seven rushing yards, and it registered six sacks, 3.5 of them recorded by defensive ends. 

Meanwhile, Iowa State’s quarterback is Arkansas State-transfer Jaylen Raynor. Against SEMO, he recorded four touchdowns–two rushing, two passing–but he didn’t really look great. He completed only 50% of his passes and the credit for his yardage (over 20 yards-per-pass on the completions) goes more to his impressive receivers than anything he did. At Arkansas State, he completed 62.9% of his passes with a high of 66.5% in 2025 (501 att). He also threw a lot of picks: 10 in 2024 and 11 in 2025.

Against SEMO, Raynor did a lot of drop back stuff which is out of his element and it showed. My guess is ISU was hiding its playbook and this week, Raynor’s talents will be showcased. Showcased or not, he did make some awful passes that SEMO couldn’t pick. Iowa will turn those awful passes into turnovers, and in this series, turnovers have historically been the difference maker. 

Also, consider Raynor a tune-up for Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, the same type of quarterback but waaaaay more talented. How Iowa’s defensive ends do keeping contain will tell a lot about how they might do vs Underwood in two weeks. 

Over Kirk Ferentz’s tenure, the team that has won the turnover battle has won 25 of the 26 Cy-Hawk matchups. The only exception is 2012 when Iowa State won 9-6 despite turning the ball over three times to Iowa’s one.

2026 will continue the trend. Look for Iowa State to turn the ball over at least three times and have at least a minus-2 margin. This will lead to an Iowa victory.