Iowa State hosts Iowa in the 57th meeting in the series. Cyclone coach Paul Rhoads has been involved in the Pitt-West Virginia and Alabama-Auburn rivalries the past few years and says this series is much different. Rhoads says it might be closer to the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry because he says there’s not a lot of hate in that rivalry. He says in other rivalries the people in those games “don’t like each other and they are not afraid to show it.”
Rhoads says the fans in the Cyclone/Hawkeye rivalry will be eating chicken wings with each other in the parking lot.
Iowa State opened with a victory over North Dakota State and now looks to grab in-state bragging rights. Rhoads says it would be a nice shot in the arm, but he says it wouldn’t hold them back in recruiting efforts, but he’d certainly like to have the win over a loss.
Rhoads felt the Cyclone defense showed improvement last week but says the Hawks prevent a tougher challenge. He says they have to be in the spots where they are suppose to be to keep Iowa from getting to the second level in their blocking scheme. Iowa State’s offense will spread the field and probe for mismatches against Iowa’s 4-3 defense.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz expects another close game as he says the games the last 10 years have been pretty close. He says that’s typical of a good rivalry. Ferentz is concerned about Iowa’s secondary matching up with the Cyclone receivers. He says they have tall receivers and says it was a concern last week with UNI’s receivers.
Ferentz says this will be as tough as any Big Ten road game. He says they need to be well aware of that and it will be as lively a crowd as they will play in front of. Ferentz says this game comes down to the team that performs the best on that given day regardless of what they’ve already done.