If you you're wondering how Iowa's season will go, The Skinny is an early look ahead at Iowa's competition for the upcoming football season.

Next up? The Iowa State Cyclones.

THE SKINNY: Utah State | Iowa State | Western Michigan | Penn State | Michigan State | Purdue | Wisconsin | Minnesota | Northwestern | Rutgers | Illinois | Nebraska

PREDICTIONS: Utah State | Iowa State | Western Michigan | Penn State | Michigan State | Purdue | Wisconsin | Minnesota | Northwestern | Rutgers | Illinois | Nebraska

The Cyclones were in Fort Worth, Texas, getting steamrolled 62-14 by the TCU Horned Frogs in the final game of the 2022 regular season.

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The Cyclones' deal is that they spent the better part of the past century dwelling in in the basement of college football, before head coach Matt Campbell arrived and oversaw one of the most successful periods in Iowa State football history. That honeymoon period is mostly over, but Iowa State football is still probably in as a good position as it's been in decades.

4-8, which is obviously not good. In fairness to the Cyclones, they were better than that record indicates. In what is probably (mostly) a case of shockingly bad luck, Iowa State was an abysmal 1-6 in close games, those decided by a touchdown or less.

That one win, of course, came against Iowa early in the season in a 10-7 snoozer.

Iowa State spent most of the Big 12 portion of the season losing agonizingly close games in a manner that would have made Scott Frost proud. Aside from a decisive victory against West Virginia, the Big 12 schedule featured a series of heart-breaking losses, until it wrapped up with the aforementioned beatdown in Fort Worth.

Entering his 8th year as Iowa State's head coach, Matt Campbell seems to have finally realized his dream of turning the Cyclones into "That Team Out East" West. Under Campbell, Iowa State has transformed into the best defensive team in the Big 12. Whether it's overall (4.7 yards per play), rush defense (3.2 yards/carry), or pass defense (6.6 yards/attempt), nobody in the Big 12 was more difficult to move the football against than the Cyclones.

For a more direct comparison, ISU only gave up about 15 yards per game more than Iowa — which includes the caveat that the average Big 12 team is better at moving the football than the average Big Ten team. SP+ can help bridge the gap. While Iowa was listed as the most efficient defensive team relative to schedule in all of college football, Iowa State ranked sixth.

The Cyclone comparisons to Iowa don't end with the defense.

Iowa State's offense also spent 2022 in the doldrums. They had the lowest yards per carry average in the Big 12 at 3.3, and their average of 6.6 yards per attempt in the passing game ranked second-to-last in the league. In a generally offense-happy league, Iowa State's 5.1 yards per play average ranked dead last. (Iowa averaged 2.9 yards/carry, 5.8 yard/attempt and 4.0 yards/play overall, by way of comparison.)

Again, SP+ can help bridge the gap here. Despite Iowa's awful offensive stats, they get some credit for playing four of the 10 best defenses and six of the Top 25 defenses last season. SP+ ranked Iowa 118th in offensive efficiency in 2022. Iowa State, who faced fewer elite defenses in the Big 12, ranked 110th.

While Iowa State's offense was better than Iowa's by a small margin, the biggest difference is that ISU accepted that it couldn't run the football and attempted to compensate by throwing the football a lot. ISU threw more passes than any other B12 teams except Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, with most of that action going to Xavier Hutchinson. (Iowa rushed the ball 54.7% of the time last season, while Iowa State ran the ball only 45.1% of the time.)

The other difference between Iowa and Iowa State: special teams. Aside from turnovers, special teams have been the biggest reason that Iowa has won so many games against ISU in the Coach Matt Campbell Era.

Let's start with Iowa State's biggest problem: field goals.The Cyclones converted just 13 of 23 field goal attempts last season: an abysmal 56% success rate, worst in the Big 12. If that number had been closer to 75%, ISU could plausibly have won enough games to make a bowl game. By comparison, Iowa was a very solid 17-21 on field goal tries, the 81% success rate ranking fourth in the Big Ten.

Iowa State also picked up the fewest yards on kickoff returns in the Big 12, at a paltry 16.6 yards per return (Iowa averaged 22.2 yards per return). Iowa State's punt return average, 6.7 yards per return, was more blah than outright bad (Iowa averaged 9.7 yards per punt return). At minimum, ISU wasn't actively bad at covering kickoffs (netting 40.7 yards on average) or punts (netting 38.3).

But again, per SP+ , Iowa ranked 5th nationally in terms of special teams efficiency, while Iowa State ranked a dismal 129th. There are 131 teams currently in college football.

Even before the ongoing gambling investigation, this felt like a transition year for the Cyclones. Now it feels like an even harsher transition is in store for Campbell's boys.

Given what happened last season and the damage the gambling investigation has wrought to the roster, simply making a bowl game this season might be a satisfactory outcome in Ames this season. Campbell's seat shouldn't be warm -- he's got more than enough goodwill to endure another 4-8 campaign -- but with a smidge better luck (or a better kicker), ISU could make it to six wins.

This will be the 70th time the Hawkeyes and Cyclones have played each other, with Iowa holding a 46-23 edge. The road team has won the last four games in the series, dating back to 2019. Iowa was the last team to win a Cy-Hawk game at home (in 2018). Iowa has won six of the last seven Cy-Hawk games and seven of the last nine overall, though the margins have been tight in most of those games; the last five Cy-Hawk games have been decided by a total of just 27 points.

Overall, Kirk Ferentz is 13-10 in Cy-Hawk games, while Matt Campbell is 1-5.

Starting with the departures on Iowa State's defense, the single biggest loss is easily defensive end Will McDonald, ISU's all-time sack leader and only first round NFL draft pick of the 21st century. Fellow defensive lineman M.J. Anderson declared for the NFL Draft. Another defensive line starter, Isaiah Lee, left the team amid the gambling investigation. Linebackers Colby Reeder and O'Rien Vance are also gone. And All Big-12 second team selection Anthony Johnson is now a Green Bay Packer.

But there may not be that much regression for Iowa State on the defensive side of the ball. The Cyclone secondary looks pretty stacked, with second-team All-Big 12 defensive back T.J. Tampa back alongside All Big-12 honorable mention selections Jeremiah Cooper, Beau Freyler, and Myles Purchase.

On the offensive side, the biggest loss is wideout Xavier Hutchinson, Iowa State's best offensive player in 2022, who was picked by the Texans in the 6th round. Trevor Downing, a second team All-Big 12 lineman, graduated along with TE-to-fullback convert Jared Rus.

And the gambling investigations has hit Iowa State with even more roster turnover. Incumbent QB Hunter Dekkers is one of the players who has been charged as part of the gambling investigation, ruling him out for the Iowa game (and possibly the remainder of his college career). His absence means either redshirt freshman Rocco Becht or true freshman J.J. Kohl will be starting at QB.

Like Dekkers, RB Jirehl Brock (445 yards, 3 TD, 4.5 ypc) is one of the players who has been charged as part of the gambling investigation, potentially ending his college career. In his place, Arlen Harris Jr., a 3* running back transfer from Stanford, will likely be the lead back. Jayden Higgins, a transfer from Eastern Kentucky, will help fill the void left by Hutchinson's departure at the wide receiver position.

But the biggest change for Iowa State on offensive isn't a player. It's their new offensive coordinator, former Illinois quarterback Nate Scheelhasse. Replacing Tom Manning after Iowa State's offense cratered in 2022, Scheelhasse is an internal hire who started with ISU as a running back coach in 2018 before coaching the wide receivers in 2019 and getting the "run game coordinator" bump in 2021. He'll try to generate a spark for the Cyclone offense in 2023.

As long at Matt Campbell and Kirk Ferentz are the respective head coaches at Iowa State and Iowa, you can make a pretty solid guess as to how this game will go: a low-scoring, eye-straining brawl, with the winner decided by one or two key plays that make all the difference. In the past four meetings, only one team has managed to surpass a total of 18 points: Iowa in 2021's 27-17 win, and that was thanks in part to a bevy of Iowa State turnovers.

Iowa has not topped 100 yards rushing against Iowa State since 2019, and the Hawkeyes haven't rushed for more than 3.0 yards/carry in this game since 2017. It's probably no coincidence that Iowa also hasn't outgained Iowa State in offensive yardage since 2018 for that reason. Aside from a win, the most important thing to see from Iowa in this game is improvement in running the football.

As for that win? Well, Iowa looks like a better team on paper, especially factoring in the absences due to the gambling investigation. It's hard to see Iowa State being a lot better this season on offense, given the personnel upheaval, but even with some offensive improvement for Iowa, the Hawkeyes will likely not be heavy favorites in Ames.

Let's give Iowa the nod, albeit a slight one. While this game won't say much about Iowa's ability to win the expiring Big Ten West, it should go a long way in setting the tone of conversations between Hawkeye and Cyclone family members and neighbors over the next 12 months here in Iowa.