TLDR: West Virginia comes into Jack Trice with one of the most explosive offenses in the country. Iowa State just spent 2 weeks learning what happens when its offense meets a ranked defense. The board has this as close to a pick'em as it gets.
West Virginia brings a run-first, big-play offense under Rich Rodriguez, with Mike Hawkins Jr. stretching defenses, to face a first-year Jimmy Rogers team at Iowa State. The Cyclones have rolled weaker opponents but scored only 13 and 17 against ranked Iowa and Utah. That makes this a test of whether Jaylen Raynor's offense can keep up with the Mountaineers. The betting line treats the game as essentially even, with Iowa State at home trying to avoid an 0-2 start in the Big 12.
The football setup starts with 2 quarterbacks who got here in very different ways. Mike Hawkins Jr. runs the Rich Rodriguez offense in Morgantown, and entering Week 4 he led the nation at 18.3 yards per completion. That's a quarterback taking shots downfield behind a run game that was averaging 264.0 yards a game, 3rd in the country and tops in the Big 12. Iowa State hands the ball to Jaylen Raynor, the Arkansas State transfer, who passed 39 career starts in the Bowling Green game. Nobody in Ames is waiting on a young quarterback to grow up.
Both head coaches are new to this matchup in their own way. Rodriguez is in year 2 of his second run at West Virginia, and the Mountaineers started 3-0 for the first time in 8 years: a 31-24 grind past Coastal Carolina, a 52-7 rout of UT Martin, and a 38-27 win over then-No. 25 Virginia in Charlotte. Jimmy Rogers is in year 1 at Iowa State after stops at Washington State and South Dakota State, where he won an FCS title in his first season. His Cyclones are 2-2 and 0-1 in the Big 12, and they hit their conference schedule hard. On the availability side, defensive back Jaheim Singletary went to the hospital during the Bowling Green game with a concussion and a stiff neck. He was released, but his status for this one is worth watching.
Iowa State's season splits into 2 halves. The Cyclones handled the teams they should, 38-10 over Southeast Missouri State and 55-7 over Bowling Green, when Aiden Flora ran for 194 yards and 2 touchdowns on 12 carries and added a punt-return score. Against ranked opponents, the offense managed 13 points in the loss at Iowa, which came down to a last-second field goal, and 17 in a 31-17 home loss to Utah. Those 2 games are the real question for Rogers: can this offense score enough against a Power 4 defense to keep pace?
That makes the West Virginia ground game the matchup to watch. Rodriguez wants to wear defenses down on the ground and then hit them over the top, and a Cyclone defense that just gave up 31 to Utah now has to defend both at once. West Virginia opened its own Big 12 schedule at home against Oklahoma State before this trip, so the Mountaineers arrive with 1 league game on tape and their first conference road test ahead.
The early forecast for Ames on Saturday, October 3, is about as friendly as October football gets: 56 degrees, clear skies, a 12 mph breeze and an 11% chance of rain. Neither team is ranked, and neither has much margin left if it wants to stay in the Big 12 race. Iowa State would sit at 0-2 in the league with a loss. For West Virginia, it's the first real test of whether the 3-0 start meant something.
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UT Martin52-7
Southeast Missouri State38-10