The Hawkeyes used a terrific defensive performance to stun the Cyclones at Jack Trice Stadium.
Welcome back to our countdown to the 2026 Iowa football season!
Since May 28, we've been counting down the final 100 days until the Hawkeyes swarm out of the Kinnick Stadium tunnel for their season opener against Northern Illinois on Sept. 5.
This countdown has typically featured articles profiling a member of the 2026 Hawkeyes based on their jersey number, but the next two days of the countdown are going to look a lot different.
Iowa doesn't issue a jersey number for days 42 and 41, so we're instead going to take the historical route. With another 9/11 anniversary approaching (25 years), we're going to turn the calendar back five years to 2021.
The Hawkeyes would play in-state rival Iowa State on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in 2021, and though the day was set aside to remember the horrific tragedy, Iowa also played a memorable, game too.
The Rundown
Iowa and Iowa State had never played a ranked-on-ranked matchup prior to 2021, but that's exactly what happened.
The No. 9 Cyclones were a preseason AP Top 10 team after winning nine games in 2020, while the Hawkeyes vaulted to No. 10 in the nation after throttling Indiana on opening day.
ESPN's College GameDay returned to Ames for the second consecutive time, adding another level of hype to the matchup.
Iowa was riding a five-game winning streak in the series by this point (no meeting in 2020 due to COVID-19), but many national analysts believed this would finally be Iowa State's turn to taste victory.
They were wrong, though. The Hawkeyes began the game on an inauspicious note with two punts and a missed field goal, but quickly turned the game in their favor in the second.
Defensive back Matt Hankins jumpstarted Iowa's offense by intercepting Cyclone quarterback Brock Purdy at midfield, and the Hawkeyes responded by scoring the game's first touchdown to take a 7-3 lead.
Iowa would never trail again.
The Hawkeyes' best drive of the day came on their final drive of the first half. Quarterback Spencer Petras engineered a 10-play, 71-yard scoring march that ended with a perfectly-thrown 26-yard touchdown strike to Charlie Jones.
That made it a 14-3 Iowa lead, and though Iowa State briefly stole momentum back with a touchdown at the end of the half, the Hawkeyes stayed in control thanks to their defense.
In a second half that would ultimately mirror the rest of the season, Iowa's defense was its offense in this one. The Hawkeyes picked off Purdy twice in the third, but the difference in the game was when Jack Campbell scooped up a Breece Hall fumble and pranced into the end zone for essentially the game-winning touchdown.
A late cosmetic touchdown by Iowa State helped make the score a little better, but this day was all Hawkeyes.
The win clinched Iowa its sixth straight win over the 'Clones - the longest winning streak by any team in the series since Hayden Fry's Hawks won 15 straight from 1983-1997.
The Hawkeyes would be plagued by offensive struggles for the rest of the 2021 season, but still won 10 games and reached the Big Ten Championship Game for the first time in 10 years.
Iowa State wasn't so lucky. The Cyclones collapsed to a mediocre 7-6 mark and finished unranked. They have reversed their fortunes against Iowa after this, winning three of the last four matchups.
The 2026 meeting will take place at Kinnick Stadium on Sept. 12, with kickoff set for 6:30 CT on NBC.
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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at [email protected]
