Warning: If you are an Iowa fan, either stop reading or proceed with caution.

It’s been analyzed and re-analyzed. Anything you would ever want to know about the game Saturday, you have already heard. I’m sure you have received that call from a token Iowa fan, claiming how he or she will come to Jack Trice and take the Cyclones to the cleaners. Don’t take it, fight back.

While mulling around campus, I get the impression a large portion of my fellow students think “we” don’t stand a chance. Why is that? Don’t pay attention to the hype spewed from Iowa City. If I listen to one more Hawkeye fan tell me how Chad Greenway and Abdul Hodge are going to tear “us” apart, I’m going to pull a Sam Aiello. They say Drew Tate will throw for 500 yards and six touchdowns on the Cyclones. If I didn’t know better, I would think the Hawkeyes have never lost in the past five years. Oh, quite the contrary, my feathered Hawk friends.

The Hawks aren’t as invincible as they would make you believe.

Hold on … I think Andrew Walter just threw another touchdown pass on the Iowa secondary. Just a year ago, this same Hawkeye secondary gave up 435 yards passing and five TDs to Arizona State in a 44-7 drubbing. Oh, so soon we forget. What about LSU’s Jamarcus Russel torching the Hawks for 140 yards and two touchdowns in one quarter on New Year’s Day? LSU wasn’t the only team blowing coverages that day.

See, now Hawk fans are all riled up. Don’t tell them Kirk Ferentz is 6-9 against non-Big 10 BCS foes — they may get defensive. Captain Kirk can’t do any wrong.

Some Hawk fans are like that high-maintenance female everyone knows. They simply are unable to take criticism and if you dare call them out, they respond with angry e-mails. Don’t misunderstand me, I think Iowa is capable of competing for their first “real” Big 10 title since 1985, but they aren’t infallible. Winning 56-0 against an Ames Middle School-caliber Ball State team doesn’t prove anything.

The truth is, I respect the heck out of Kirk Ferentz, and think he is a great representative of the state. He seems to be a genuine, likable guy, unlike a certain “high profile” basketball coach in Iowa City. It’s hard to cheer against Ferentz, but when you run into one (not all) of the deranged followers of Hawkeye nation, you quickly realize why this is a rivalry. Luckily, it’s not a “beat the crap out of the other school’s students type rivalry” — it’s much more cordial than that.

Antwan Allen may think otherwise, but I digress.

Most of us have great Hawkeye friends and have enjoyed Iowa City at one point or another. I was even born in the U of I hospitals, my grandparents were professors at Iowa and I have a twin brother who goes to school there. Yes, there are actually two of us roaming the state — scary thought. Most people have some connection to the other school.

The great part about this rivalry is you can say obnoxious things to your Hawkeye friends, then laugh about it and drink some cheap beer.

After all, even though we make Saturday out to be life and death, it is still a game.

A really important game.