All offseason, plenty of people tried to make Iowa State’s trip to Iowa City sound like a mismatch. That didn’t survive contact with the actual game.
Saturday’s 16-13 Iowa win was exactly the kind of tight, ugly, possession-by-possession fight this rivalry tends to produce. Jimmy Rogers said the Cyclones came to win, not collect a moral victory, and the game played out like two evenly matched teams trading field position and waiting for someone to blink late. In the end, Iowa did just enough in the fourth quarter to do the winning.
The Hawkeyes got a steadier quarterback outing than many expected from Hank Brown. He finished 21-for-30 for 191 yards without a turnover, and even with talk of Jeremy Hecklinski possibly entering the game if Iowa needed a spark, Kirk Ferentz stayed with Brown.
That call paid off late. With Iowa trailing 13-10 heading into the fourth quarter, Brown helped guide back-to-back drives of 11 and 9 plays, and both ended in field goals to put the game away.
If Iowa had gone to Hecklinski cold off the bench, it might have been a gamble that backfired.
For Iowa State, the separator was simple: penalties.
The Cyclones were flagged six times for 45 yards, and those mistakes kept knocking the offense out of rhythm. The biggest hit came in the fourth quarter when Iowa State was nearing midfield in a 13-13 game and got tagged for a false start on third-and-1.
After that, Jaylen Raynor threw incomplete on third-and-6, and the drive was dead. In a game like this, where every yard matters and field position keeps piling up on itself, that kind of sequence can decide everything.
Iowa won the second-half field-position battle, and the penalties helped tilt it that way.
That’s what makes these matchups so hard to pin down. The box score can leave you thinking the offense was bad and the defense was great, but that doesn’t always tell the full story.
Iowa State has played other opponents and looked different. Against Iowa, the margins shrink, and everything gets magnified.
One area where the Cyclones did hold up was against the run. Iowa managed just 15 carries for 57 yards, which is not the kind of production Kamari Moulton usually wants for himself.
The front seven deserved credit there. The defensive line closed gaps, and the linebackers were quick to the ball.
The only real concern was that Iowa seemed to find too many easy short routes and checkdowns, which kept the Hawkeyes in manageable situations too often. Still, in a game built on first downs and field position, Iowa State’s run defense gave it a chance.
Offensively, the ground game was better than expected. The running back group didn’t come into the season with a ton of buzz, and nothing in the opener against Southeast Missouri changed that much.
But Aiden Flora carried the load Saturday, handling 19 rushes for 89 yards. That’s not a headline-grabbing line, but 4.7 yards per carry against that defense is solid work.
The passing game, though, was uneven again, and there’s still a lot of room for the quarterback-receiver connection to grow as the season goes on.
In Other News...
Iowa State Suddenly Has A Passing Game Problem To Solve
Iowa States passing game took a hit in the Cyclones game against Iowa when wide receiver Evan Boyd went down with a knee injury, and head coach Jimmy Rogers said he will miss the rest of the season. Boyd arrived as a transfer with Power Four experience and was expected to be a meaningful part of the offense, so his loss changes the early shape of the receiver room in a hurry.
Carter Pabst and freshman Jamal Polite Jr. are now among the players with a chance to absorb some of those snaps and targets. For Iowa State, the challenge is not just replacing one receivers production, but finding a way to keep the passing game balanced enough to support the rest of the offense after losing a player it had counted on. [Read more 🡒]
Tamin Lipsey Could Change Iowa States Biggest 2026-27 Question
Tamin Lipseys future could end up shaping one of Iowa States biggest questions for the 2026-27 season, and it has nothing to do with what happens on the floor in the near term. Lipsey and other student-athletes have joined a lawsuit against the NCAA seeking a fifth year of competition eligibility, arguing that players from the Class of 2022 were improperly left out of the associations Five-for-Five model.
The case is still moving through the courts, with both sides ordered to submit legal findings by Sept. 17, 2026. For Iowa State, the issue carries obvious weight because Lipsey has been central to the programs recent success, and his eligibility status could eventually affect how the Cyclones approach their roster planning for the next season and beyond. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Just Raised Expectations For Jimmy Rogers In A Big Way
The first two weeks under Jimmy Rogers have given Iowa State a far different early read than the one many projected in the summer. With a nearly rebuilt roster and a new coaching staff, the Cyclones handled Southeast Missouri State in Week 1 and then went toe-to-toe with Iowa before falling just short in the rivalry game, a start that has already pushed this group beyond the preseason chatter that had them buried near the bottom of the Big 12.
Now comes the part that will really define how much this start matters. Iowa State still has a demanding run ahead, with conference play and a mix of home and road tests set to tell whether this is simply a promising opening or the start of something more durable, and bowl eligibility will depend on how the Cyclones respond once the schedule stiffens and the margin for error gets thinner. [Read more 🡒]