The Cyclones and the Hawkeyes are both 1-0 on the season entering the Cy-Hawk showdown at Jack Trice Stadium onSept. 12.
Iowa State came out on top last season, but a closer look at the numbers reveals why this season could be a bit of a different story.

Sacks against Iowa QB Jake Rudock last season: 22
For as much depth and experience as the Iowa offensive line had last season, the line still managed to let quarterback Jake Rudock be sacked a hefty 22 times, seventh-most in the Big Ten.

And while the O-line this season is younger and less experienced, pressure on the quarterback was not at all an issue in the first week for the Hawkeyes.
C.J. Beathard was not sacked a single time against the Redbirds, and the Hawks suffered just a single play for a loss from the line of scrimmage. Football Championship Subdivision opponent aside, a similarly dominant game against Iowa State would go along way to stacking the deck in Iowa’s favor this week.
A more mobile, slippery quarterback such as Beathard will no doubt help to alleviate some of that pressure should the line let behemoths through, but make no mistake, this year’s Cy-Hawk series will be won and lost in the trenches for the Hawks.

Number of interceptions Iowa State threw in 2014: 11
The Cyclone offense had a bad habit of giving the ball away last season, finishing tied for fourth in the Big 12 in interceptions with 11.
Quarterback Sam Richardson went without a pick in the team’s first win of the season against Northern Iowa. But turnovers played a large part in last season’s Cy-Hawk game, when Rudock tossed the game’s lone pick, one the Cyclones turned into 7 points shorty thereafter.
Rudock won’t. obviously, return this year, and Richardson looked calm in the pocket in his team’s opener against the Panthers, but it goes without saying that a positive turnover margin would benefit both teams.

Average yards per carry for Iowa against ISU: 4.8
The duo of LeShun Daniels Jr. and Jordan Canzeri was positively electric on Sept. 5 for Iowa, combining for more than 200 all-purpose yards and establishing both players as legitimate threats out of the backfield.
Those two will figure to play a huge role in Saturday’s clash at Trice against a Cyclones team that dominated UNI from defensive standpoint.
The Cyclones boast an incredibly veteran and experienced defensive front, with free-safety Kamari Cotton-Moya as the lone underclassmen to start.
Seeing how Iowa’s backfield performs against a Division-I school will be a good barometer of what the Hawkeyes’ ceiling can be going into the rest of the season.

Average margin of victory for Iowa/ISU since 2010: 3.75 points
In the years following the Hawkeyes’ 35-3 rout of the ‘Clones in 2010, the last four Iowa-Iowa State games have been decided by an average of fewer than 4 points.
Three of those four contests ended with just a field goal separating the two teams. Of course, Ferentz, along with Iowa fans, remember including Iowa State’s last-second game winner in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter last season to give them rights to bring the trophy back to Ames.
Ferentz called a time-out intended to ice Iowa State kicker Cole Netten. It backfired catastrophically for the Hawks, negating what would have been a missed field goal by the Cyclones and gave them another chance to win the game.
These tight-game situations tend to lead to an intense scrutiny of coaching decisions, something Hawks fans are all too familiar with.