4. Iowa State at Baylor
LINE Iowa State -7
ATS PICK Iowa State
What happened to Iowa State?
This was everyone’s Who’s Hot? thing coming into the season after a breakthrough 2020.
Everyone was back, the team was loaded with All-Big 12 stars and a few real NFL prospects, and Matt Campbell was supposedly the hottest head coach on the block.
And then pfffffffffft. All the air came out of the balloon with a clunker of a win against Northern Iowa and an offensive meltdown against Iowa. Yeah, ripping through UNLV was necessary, but whatever. You could do that, too, if you wanted.
Here’s what’s wrong with Iowa State …
Nothing.
Northern Iowa is a weird rivalry thing. That program occasionally applies some mind-meld thing on the other Iowa teams. Iowa State still won.
The Iowa game went exactly like it was supposed to – big brother is just better this year.
Through those two games, one thing got totally lost in all the concerns about the offense …
The defense was still amazing.
The No. 1 defense is college football has given up a grand total of 152 yards on the ground so far with Iowa coming up with a season-high 67.
Yeah, Baylor is fifth in the nation in total D, but Texas State, Texas Southern, and Kansas – that’s who it went against.
The Bears have been getting by with a running game that’s not going to work against the Cyclones, the defense will finally deal with an offense with players who aren’t mediocre at college football, and you’re going to benefit by getting this Iowa State team giving up just seven.