Iowa Football: 5 reasons Iowa will be better than Iowa State in 2018

Iowa football and rival Iowa State appeared to finish dead even in 2017 as both teams finished 8-5, here’s why Iowa will fare better in 2018.

Last year was a tale of two expectations for Iowa and Iowa State. The Hawkeyes finished 8-5 with a bowl win over Boston College in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. 7-5 or 8-5 seasons have become the standard in the Kirk Ferentz era in Iowa City, most are able to accept the consistency but, there are always those who will believe Iowa can do so much better than that. Last year was one of those years, which showed great promise in a close loss to Penn State at home and a historic rout of Ohio State, but crashed and burned with bad losses to Purdue and Wisconsin.

On the other hand, Iowa State also finished 8-5, but the 2017 season was seen as one of the most successful seasons in school history, ending with a bowl win over Memphis in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. It’s no secret that the Cyclones have a historically dormant program, but Matt Campbell has quickly made the Cyclone faithful forget all of that. Wins over top five teams in Oklahoma and TCU highlighted the season and took Iowa State all the way to a number 14 ranking in the College Football Playoff poll.

With all of that said, both teams have high expectations coming into the 2018 season, this is why I believe that Iowa will be superior to Iowa State this season.