Good Cop

Jack Shover

Against Iowa, Iowa State’s offense looked dreadful. Redshirt senior quarterback Kyle Kempt was unable to pass the ball downfield, and the team’s offensive line failed to hold up in pass protection and was unable to open running lanes against the stingy Iowa defense.

Against Oklahoma, Iowa State will not be facing a unit of that caliber. For the preseason All-Big 12 team, Oklahoma had zero players named to the team.

In addition, Iowa State will finally have a game under their belt to work out the kinks in their offense and fine-tune the offensive line.

Iowa State should be able to exploit a weaker Oklahoma defense both in the air and on the ground.

On defense, Iowa State looked sharp and physical against Iowa especially against the run.

Oklahoma brings a strong run game to the table that was anchored by star running back Rodney Anderson, who was declared out for the rest of the season. That doesn’t mean Oklahoma doesn’t have a contingency plan.

Behind Anderson, Oklahoma has two strong backups in T.J. Pledger and Trey Sermon, who have recorded 83 yards on 14 carries and 82 yards on 16 carries, respectively.

If Iowa State wants to pull away from Oklahoma, playing dominate and assignment sound in the box is a must.

Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray feeds off of the Sooners’ run game. A lot of his big plays in the passing game have come off of play action, or were a result of defenses bringing secondary players into the box to stop the run.

If Iowa State stops the run, Oklahoma’s passing game should stall as Murray has a poor deep ball and relies on the run to open up the passing game for him.

The biggest X factor of the entire game is if whether Kempt or backup Zeb Noland gets the start. If Kempt gets the start, Iowa State should be able to cruise to its second straight win against Oklahoma.

Score: Iowa State 27, Oklahoma 21

Bad Cop

Spencer Suckow

The circumstances going into this year’s game against Oklahoma are eerily similar to last year’s.

For the second year in a row, Iowa State is going into a matchup against a heavily-favored Sooners team ranked in the top five. Like last year, the Cyclones are going into the game off an ugly, low-scoring loss, facing uncertainty in regards to who will start at quarterback.

We all know what happened last year. Iowa State pulled off the biggest upset in school history en route to one of the best seasons in recent memory. Surely if lightning can strike once, it can strike again, right?

It can, but it won’t.

Oklahoma is going to come into this game mad. No matter how good Iowa State actually was last year, there’s still a negative stigma to losing to the Cyclones. Iowa State and Kansas are supposed to be a Big 12 team’s two guaranteed conference wins per year, and Oklahoma couldn’t finish the job after getting off to a hot start last year.

The team was embarrassed. The fans were embarrassed. The horses that pull the Sooner Schooner were probably embarrassed. Going into this year, though, Oklahoma is every bit as talented as last year, even without last year’s Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield.

New starting quarterback Kyler Murray has been stellar thus far, the offense is stacked with weapons even without starting running back Rodney Anderson and the defensive problems that plagued the Sooners last year have been nonexistent so far in 2018.

Oh, and you can bet they won’t be caught off guard by the Cyclones. Iowa State’s defense was good last week, but they’ll have to be perfect to stop an Oklahoma offense that’s averaging over 50 points a game. Even then, it might not be enough.

Cyclone fans can certainly hope for the best, but it looks likely this game will get ugly quick. At this point, you just have to hope Oklahoma avoids the face during the beatdown.

Final Score:

Oklahoma 45, Iowa State 20