The College Gameday crew jinx has officially hit.
The Iowa Hawkeyes fell to the Iowa State Cyclones 20-19 in the annual Cy-Hawk Showdown in what was a heartbreaking end to the game.
The Hawkeyes held the lead for the majority of the game as the defense did the best it could to keep the Cyclones off the board, but they did not get a lot of help from the offense. Iowa's offense only scored one touchdown in the second half on a Kaleb Johnson run, but they were outscored 20-7.
The highlight of Iowa's entire performance today was by far Kaleb Johnson who ran for 187 yards on 25 touches and two touchdowns. The Hawkeyes seemed to only get the run game going against the Hawkeyes after the second drive.
Cade McNamara looked like the McNamara of old struggling to complete passes and wasn't able to scramble around like he did in the second half against Illinois State.
The entire game seemed to run slow as it was punt after punt, but then something switched for Iowa State and they were able to go off on big runs or find receivers wide-open. However, the defense was able to get a couple of stops towards the end of the game and it was put in the offense's hand and clearly, that was not the right choice.
With 11:39 left in the fourth quarter, Iowa State scored a field goal that brought them within two points of tying the Hawkeyes. All the offense needed to do was put a few points on the board so the Cyclones could walk it off with a field goal at the end of the game.
The offenses continued to trade punts for the next nine minutes. The Hawkeye defense got a big stop with about three minutes left in the game forcing the Cyclones to go three-and-out. All the offense needed to do was get a few first downs in order to force the Cyclones to call their remaining timeouts before the two-minute timeout.
Head coach Kirk Ferentz, who returned to the sideline after a self-imposed one-game suspension, decided to go conservative and run the ball. The Hawkeyes were only able to get one first down before the next set of downs resulted in a punt with 40 seconds remaining.
Now the game was in the defense's hands, all they had to do was keep everything in front of them adn not allow Iowa State to get into field goal range. After two big plays that put the Cyclones in range, Iowa State hit a 54-yard field go to go up by one point, leaving just five seconds on the board.
Iowa tried to run the ball back as much as they could before the clock ran out on the kick and managed to do so with one second remaining on the clock. The Hawkeyes put the ball in McNamara's hands for the Hail Mary play, but he wasn't even able to get the ball to the end zone as it was caught by an Iowa State defender.
Hawkeyes fans couldn't believe what they saw by the end of the game as they had to watch the Cyclones grab the Cy-Hawk Trophy knowing it wasn't staying in Iowa City this year.
This is just the second loss in the last three matchups against Iowa State, and only the third in their last 10 meetings.
Iowa will have to put this game behind them and turn the page to take on Troy in one week as they still have an entire season ahead of them.