Saturday night on primetime brings the Iowa Hawkeyes to the national stage again. This week, the Hawkeyes will be in a Big Ten showdown on the road against the Michigan State Spartans.
Iowa is surging right now after figuring things out in every facet of the game last week while the Spartans are looking to figure out what this season is going to be for them after a roller coaster start of three wins followed by three losses.
Ahead of this matchup, ESPN looked into the contest and looked at how the Hawkeyes could match up against the Spartans who enter off a bye week.
Iowa at Michigan State (7:30 p.m., NBC). Heading into 2024, Iowa had topped 30 points in two of its past 26 conference games. The Hawkeyes have done it twice in three Big Ten games this year. Granted, they scored 40 on Washington with just 328 total yards last week thanks to defensive and special teams dominance, but they did it! We’ll see what resistance Michigan State can dial up; the Spartans got a bye week to lick their wounds after losing to Ohio State and Oregon by a combined 52 points. – Bill Connelly, ESPN
Current line: Iowa -4.5 (down from -6.5) | SP+ projection: Iowa by 11.2 | FPI projection: Iowa by 8.2
Despite the line moving toward the Spartans by two full points, ESPN is holding steady in their SP+ and FPI projections. Both of them are predicting Iowa to win this matchup by more than a score, with the SP+ projection having Iowa winning by 11.2 points.
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