After two dramatic weekends, ESPN could bear witness to Iowa State’s biggest nail-biter yet.

When the Cyclones (2-0) take the field Saturday against the No. 16 Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City, they’ll be taking on one of their biggest challenges of the season.

Iowa State is coming off two narrow, hair-raising victories: in triple-overtime against Toledo and 16-10 over UNLV. Both games came down to the final play, giving the Cyclones both crucial experience in crunch time and ulcers.

“There’s really not too much we haven’t seen, especially after the game last week,” said quarterback Bret Meyer. “We don’t want it to come down to that every time though.”

Although Iowa State has come away with two victories, coach Dan McCarney said there is plenty for the team to work on.

The Cyclones rank 11th in the Big 12 in both passing defense and total defense, surrendering nearly 300 yards through the air each week.

The offensive passing game also needs a little attention after star wide receiver Todd Blythe was held without a catch for the first time in his career against UNLV.

“He’s a guy that has to be involved in our offense,” McCarney said. “We have to find more ways to get the ball to him. But we also can’t just throw it and throw it and throw it and expect him to go and make a play.”

Blythe himself said although he would have liked to get involved last week, it’s good to show that the team has depth and can win without his making plays. He jokingly added that he might even try and catch a pass this week.

“I have my fingers crossed,” Blythe said. “I’m going to keep running routes and getting open.”

Blythe said there are other, more important concerns for the team than his stat sheet. He cited consistency from the offense as a key going into games on the road against Iowa and Texas the next two weeks.

“We’ve made some progress [in the first two games],” Blythe said.

“We have a lot of consistency issues though. We can’t turn the ball over on two straight possessions like we have the first two games against the types of teams we’re going to face from here on.”

And what kind of teams will they face? McCarney didn’t throw any punches when asked about the team the Cyclones will try to upset Saturday.

“Iowa is really a tremendous football team,” McCarney said. “I really think they’re as good or better now as they were when we played them last year as a top ten team.”

Iowa (2-0) is coming off a double-overtime victory at Syracuse, which had its losing streak extended to 11 games. The Hawkeyes played without quarterback Drew Tate, who was out with an abdominal injury.

Tate is listed as co-starter with backup Jason Manson, but is expected to play against Iowa State barring any setbacks.

Regardless, McCarney said the team will prepare the same for Iowa no matter who is listed as the starter.

“They run their offense,” McCarney said. “We didn’t see any difference in the way they ran things or featured things with Manson in there.

“They believe in it and they trust the players that run it. They’ve got a future NFL running back carrying the ball and a future NFL tight end on the team.”

McCarney said the defense simply must be ready to play from the opening bell when it takes on an Iowa team who, he said, has a wealth of talent on the offensive side of the ball led by running backs Albert Young and Damian Sims.

“Both those backs are just outstanding,” McCarney said. “Those are outstanding, physical, got-it-all backs. We better be really good [on defense].”

McCarney added that the Cyclone defense has more to worry about than Iowa’s running backs.

“We’re going to see a much better offense than we’ve seen the first two weeks and [Scott] Chandler will be the best tight end we’ll see all year long,” he said.

Much like the Cyclones, the Iowa secondary has also struggled in the first two games of the year. The Hawkeye defense, which stopped Syracuse seven times from inside the 2-yard line last week to win the game, has only forced one turnover on the season.

However, Meyer said Iowa State won’t change the way it plays just for Iowa’s defensive strengths or weaknesses.

“We need to be really sound and execute especially with the teams coming up,” Meyer said.

“We just have to do what we do and not worry about what they do. They’re Division I players, they’re good players so we just have to execute and do what we do best.”

Game time is set for 11:10 a.m. inside Kinnick Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN.