In most states, you pick a college football team. In Iowa, you pick a side. The state has no professional sports franchise. The University of Iowa and Iowa State University are the two largest universities, with roughly 32,000 and 30,000 students respectively, separated by about 100 miles of cornfields and a century of accumulated grievance. On the first Saturday of September, every year, the state formally divides.
Iowa leads the all-time football series 47–25. Iowa State has won two straight. None of it ends the conversation, because in a state this size, with two programs this close, the conversation is the entire point.
How It Started — and Why It Stopped
Iowa State won the first game. October 1, 1894, in Iowa City, 16–8. The series ran continuously until 1934, with Iowa State winning 9 of the first 24 meetings and Iowa taking 16. Then it stopped, for reasons that are both simpler and pettier than legend suggests: Iowa head coach and athletic director Ossie Solem simply would not return Iowa State’s phone calls to reschedule the game. Not rough play. Not a financial dispute. A man who would not return a call.
The silence lasted 43 years. An entire generation of Iowans grew up without this game. The two fanbases existed in the same state, shopped at the same stores, sat at the same Thanksgiving tables, and had no annual game to absorb the energy. The legislature grew sufficiently tired of the standoff, pressure was applied, and the series resumed in 1977. Iowa Governor Robert D. Ray presented the first Cy-Hawk Trophy to the winner at that resumption game — a trophy conceived by the Greater Des Moines Athletic Club in 1976 and designed around the two mascots: Cy the Cardinal and Herky the Hawk.
Hayden Fry was in his first season as Iowa’s coach in 1977. He lost 12–10. He lost the next two as well. Then he won 30–14 in 1979, his first Cy-Hawk victory, the first of 143 wins he would accumulate at Iowa. That 30–14 game is when the rivalry truly restarted — not 1977 on the calendar, but 1979 on the scoreboard.
The Trophy and Its Chaos
The original Cy-Hawk Trophy featured a football, a running back in a stiff-arm pose, and the likenesses of both mascots. In 2011, the Iowa Corn Growers Association became the trophy’s sponsor — making it the only rivalry trophy in college football with a corporate sponsor attached — and introduced a replacement. The new trophy depicted a farm family gathered around a basket of corn, with the father offering an ear to his son while the mother held the daughter.
It was publicly mocked within hours. Governor Terry Branstad criticized it. Retired Iowa coach Hayden Fry said: “The farmer, family and corn is all wonderful, but I don’t really get the relationship to a football game.” Iowa Corn went back to the drawing board within days. A temporary trophy was used in 2011. With fan input, a newly redesigned trophy was unveiled at the end of the 2012 game — featuring the two university mascots, a raised football, and corn in the background. The corn family trophy has never been awarded.
The Series and What It Means
Iowa’s 47–25 all-time lead is built largely on a 15-game winning streak from 1983 to 1997 — the longest in series history — and Hayden Fry’s sustained dominance. During that run, Iowa outscored Iowa State 63–20 in 1997, 59–21 in 1984, 57–3 in 1985. Iowa State’s longest modern streak: five straight from 1998 to 2002, which directly followed Iowa’s 15-game run as if the series needed to recalibrate.
Kirk Ferentz took over at Iowa in 1999 and is now 14–12 against Iowa State, losing his first four before finding his footing. His 200th career win came in 2023 against Iowa State, 20–13. Matt Campbell arrived at Iowa State in 2016, lost his first five Cy-Hawk games, and is now 3–6 against Iowa after winning in 2022, 2024, and 2025.
Six of the last eight meetings have been decided by one score. Since 2010, the home team has won only four times. Both College GameDay appearances in this series — 2019 and 2021, both in Ames — ended in Iowa wins. The series is less predictable by home field or ranking than almost any rivalry in college football.
The only two overtime games in series history produced the same score, just reversed: Iowa State won 44–41 in triple overtime in 2011; Iowa won 44–41 in one overtime in 2017.
“El Assico” and the Games That Define It
The internet calls this rivalry “El Assico” — a portmanteau of El Clásico and a less printable English word — because the game reliably produces chaos regardless of the pregame rankings. The lowest winning score in the modern era is 9 points: Iowa State’s 9–6 win in 2012. Three times the winning score has been exactly 10 points. This is the context in which these games are played.
2002: Iowa State 36, Iowa 31. The Cyclones shocked a Hawkeye team that finished the year ranked in the top 10.
2005: Iowa State 23, Iowa 3. Iowa entered ranked eighth nationally. The Cyclones won by 20.
2007: Iowa State 15, Iowa 13. No touchdowns — five field goals, a 15–13 win. A program definition in one box score.
2011: Iowa State 44, Iowa 41 in triple overtime, in Ames. The longest game in series history.
2014: Iowa State 20, Iowa 17 at Kinnick Stadium — a winning kick with two seconds remaining.
2021: The only time both teams entered ranked in the AP Top 10. ESPN College GameDay came to Ames for the second time. No. 10 Iowa won 27–17.
2022: Iowa State 10, Iowa 7. Matt Campbell’s first Cy-Hawk win after five losses. The margin captures the series perfectly.
2024: Iowa State 20, Iowa 19 at Kinnick. Kyle Konrardy drilled a 54-yard field goal as time expired. Iowa’s first home loss to Iowa State since 2014.
2025: Iowa State 16, Iowa 13 at Jack Trice Stadium — Iowa State’s first home win in the series since 2011. Konrardy again: a 54-yard field goal with 1:52 remaining, his third of the game. Rocco Becht threw a touchdown pass in his 21st straight game, the longest active streak in FBS. Iowa was held to 214 total yards. Matt Campbell: “When you’ve got a guy like Kyle, you just trust him.” Kirk Ferentz: “The series has been decided at the end of the game the last couple years, and there were several opportunities that we didn’t cash in.”
Iowa State’s past six wins in the series have been by a combined 15 points.
Two Universities, Two Identities
The University of Iowa, founded in 1847, is a public research university anchored by liberal arts, medicine, and law. Its medical center and UI Hospitals are among the largest employers in the state. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the most prestigious creative writing program in the country. Kinnick Stadium, named for Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick who died in World War II, holds 69,250 fans. After the first quarter of every home game, 70,000 people turn and wave at the children watching from the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital overlooking the east end zone — one of the most moving traditions in American sports.
Iowa State, founded in 1858, is Iowa’s land-grant university — the first institution in the nation to teach scientific agriculture, establishing the model that became the Morrill Act. Jack Trice Stadium, named for Iowa State’s first Black athlete who died from injuries sustained in a 1923 game against Minnesota — the only major college stadium in America named for a Black athlete — holds 61,500. Brock Purdy, the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback, played his college career at Iowa State and went undrafted as Mr. Irrelevant in 2022 before becoming one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
The state has 3.2 million people. There is no professional sports team. The fan split, historically 70–30 in favor of Iowa, has moved toward 50–50 as Iowa State has grown in football relevance over the last decade.
The Multi-Sport War: Wrestling, Basketball, and the Cy-Hawk Series
The football game gets the September spotlight, but the competition runs year-round. The Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series awards points across 19 NCAA-sanctioned sports, with the first school to 14 points claiming the overall title. Football earns 3 points; men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, and several Olympic sports award 2 points each.
Wrestling anchors Iowa’s Cy-Hawk Series advantage. Iowa leads the all-time wrestling dual series 70–17–2 — a dominance that defines the program nationally. Iowa has 24 NCAA national wrestling championships; Iowa State has 8. Iowa won the 2024 dual 21–15; Iowa State broke through in 2025, winning 20–14.
Men’s basketball: Iowa leads 48–31 all-time, but Iowa State has won three straight through December 2025, including an 89–80 win by No. 3 Iowa State in Iowa City and a 66–62 win by No. 4 Iowa State in Ames. Women’s basketball: Iowa leads 30–21.
NIL and How Fans Are Now Part of It
Iowa operates in the Big Ten, the oldest conference in the nation, with a revenue sharing cap of $20.5 million per school for 2025–26. The Hawkeyes’ NIL infrastructure gives athletes access to the Iowa City market and the university’s extensive medical and business alumni network. Iowa fans can back Hawkeyes athletes directly through RallyFuel’s verified NIL deal platform, supporting the players they want to keep in Iowa City and tracking real performance stats.
Iowa State operates in the Big 12, with the same $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap. Iowa State’s NIL operation is centered on the We Will Fund — transitioned from the We Will Collective in 2025 and housed within the ISU Foundation — providing the maximum revenue-sharing amount allowed under the House settlement. Iowa State confirmed it will distribute the full $20.5 million for 2025–26. Iowa State fans can back Cyclones athletes directly through RallyFuel.
The inter-conference structure makes this one of the rarest matchups in modern college football: a guaranteed annual Big Ten vs. Big 12 game, one of only a handful remaining alongside Florida–Florida State and Clemson–South Carolina. As conferences expand and schedules grow more national, this game guarantees a return to the shared Midwestern backyard every September.
RallyFuel’s weekly college football predictions game lets fans earn points and direct them toward NIL support. The schools leaderboard tracks total fan-driven contributions — a live measure of which fanbase is more mobilized. The Trophy Case tracks Heisman contenders throughout the season; Nile Kinnick won Iowa’s only Heisman in 1939, and the stadium bearing his name is where Konrardy hit his game-winner in 2024.
Why It Never Ends
Iowa leads 47–25. Iowa State has won two straight on a 54-yard field goal each time by the same kicker. The corn family trophy was never awarded. The wave at the children’s hospital happens every home game. The wrestling series is 70–17–2. The state has 3.2 million people and no professional sports team.
Ossie Solem didn’t return the phone calls. Forty-three years passed. And then they started playing again, and it turned out the argument had never actually stopped — it had just been looking for a scoreboard.
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