One of the most underrated rivalries will add another chapter to its storied legacy when the Iowa Hawkeyes and Iowa State Cyclones meet for the CyHawk Trophy on Saturday afternoon in Week 2 action. This will be the first game of the season for Iowa State. Their opener against South Dakota State was cancelled due to bad weather, so Iowa has no film to break down Matt Campbell’s offense. The Hawkeyes looked sharp in their opener against a very good Northern Illinois team though, easily covering the CFB betting line in a 33-7 win.
This matchup in Week 2 will take place on Saturday, September 8, 2018, at 5 p.m. ET at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Iowa State +4
Iowa -4
Over/Under 46
Odds Analysis
The NCAAF betting line has not moved since it opened on Sunday night in this game. Iowa came out as a four-point home favorite, and while the juice has teetered towards 4.5, it has yet to go over the edge.
However, the total has dropped a decent chunk. The CFB betting odds had the over/under for this one at 49, and now they are down to 46.
Player to Watch
Iowa State got excellent news this offseason when the NCAA announced they had granted Kyle Kempt a sixth year of eligibility. Kempt walked onto the program after transferring in from a small junior college in Kansas, and his emergence last season was one of the best stories in college football.
Kempt came out of nowhere to take over the starting job from Georgia transfer Jacob Park after Iowa State lost 17-7 to Texas in the last game of September. Many believed that Campbell was throwing Kempt to the wolves with his first start coming on the road against Oklahoma, but instead Kempt shined in the hostile environment. He completed 18 of 24 passes for 343 yards and three touchdowns, leading the Cyclones back in one of the biggest upsets of the season.
He kept the train rolling with four straight wins, including a victory over TCU, and he led the Cyclones to a Liberty Bowl victory over Memphis. It was the program’s first bowl win since 2009, and he has the once-moribund Cyclones hungry for more in 2018.
Matchup to Watch
Iowa wants to move the ball on the ground against Iowa State. The Hawkeyes have generally liked to move the ball on the ground under head coach Kirk Ferentz, and they ground out a win through the run game against Northern Illinois last week. In that game, Iowa ran the ball a whopping 48 times for 209 yards and three touchdowns. The Hawkeyes were content to trust their defense and their run game, and they didn’t put Nathan Stanley into bad situations after he looked a bit shaky early on.
Stanley did not have his best performance against the Huskies defense. He dinked and dunked his way to an 11 of 23 performance for 108 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Stanley completed less than 50 percent of his passes for the third time in his last five games, and he continued to not look like the quarterback we saw in big wins over Iowa State and Ohio State last season.
Free ATS Pick
There was talk of Stanley being a potential first round draft pick according to some pundits this offseason, but they had likely only watched tape of Stanley in those victories. Those were the only two games in which he completed 20 or more passes, and his numbers were quite pedestrian in almost every other game.
It seems like sharps are finally catching on to the fact that Stanley isn’t what he was made out to be with this line. I would like to get a bigger number, but I’ll be going with the Cyclones here.
College Football Odds: Iowa State 23, Iowa 21
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