#7 Iowa at #8 Iowa State Preview and Predictions

The Thanksgiving break has made for a light week of collegiate action. That being said, one of the most anticipated duals of the season will go down on Sunday afternoon as #7 Iowa travels across the state to take on rival #8 Iowa State, live on ESPN’s main channel. 

This is one of those duals where you can throw the records out the window as some unexpected results are sure to arise and typically the team score is very close. Both are expected this year. 

While unexpected individual results have been commonplace, one constant is Iowa’s team dominance in this series. The Hawkeyes have won the last 18 iterations of this matchup and have never lost with Tom Brands at the helm. Iowa State’s last win came in 2004, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, when Bobby Douglas was the Cyclones head coach. Kevin Dresser took over the reins at the end of the 2016-17 season and injected new life into the rivalry; however, he’s still searching for his first win over Iowa. 

This dual took an unexpected turn during the offseason as the athletic departments of both schools were at the center of a sports gambling probe. While both wrestling teams were impacted, the Hawkeyes felt the brunt of this scandal much more than the Cyclones. 

In anticipation of possible sanctions, Brands and the Iowa staff hit the transfer portal hard and added three starters; two of whom are All-Americans. Between transfers, sanctions, and graduation, this is a very “new-look” Hawkeye team. With a few starters lacking postseason experience, it appears as if this is the best chance in over a decade for Iowa State to snap its losing streak versus the Hawks. 

Even if Iowa looks more vulnerable than at any time since year one of the Brands-era, you can’t count out Iowa. There’s still plenty of talent, combined with pride and a mental edge over their in-state foes. 

Can Iowa State snap the streak? Absolutely! Will they? Well, that remains to be seen. 

We’ve gone match-by-match through the dual and previewed the action along with making predictions for each of the ten bouts, which are below.

125 lbs: #17 Drake Ayala (Iowa) vs. #8 Kysen Terukina (Iowa State)

As is typically the case between these two rivals, the dual should start at 125 lbs. That’s fine because 125 presents one of the best matchups of the duals, despite the current disparity in the rankings. Both wrestlers moved significantly after their most recent dual. Kysen Terukina jumped sharply as he posted a one-sided major decision over Wisconsin All-American Eric Barnett. It was the second consecutive season in which Terukina easily defeated the Badger star.

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