The Sweep, Week 2: The Hate U Give

It's CyHawk week in these parts, which means Iowa and Iowa State fans are pretending to hate each other despite not actually caring about the other group for the rest of the season. 

The gold standard for college football hate is the Auburn-Alabama rivalry, which fuels much of Paul Finebaum's career and has led to the poisoning of historic trees and a jail sentence. In comparison to that, the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry is Hands Across America. Almost every fan of either school will go back to tacitly rooting for the other team, or at the very least, well ...

... yeah, Iowans just don't do hate very well. Even our Minnesota Nice neighbors know how to hide their hate beneath a cloak of passive-aggressive behavior and backhanded compliments. Iowans are just too danged earnest for that.

(For the Nebraska fans, "earnest" means "sincere." "Sincere" means ... hey, look, it's Eric Crouch signing autographs at Don & Millie's!)

(See, Iowans? I'm one of you by birth and I get it!)

Right. The games.

No. 11 ILLINOIS AT DUKE (11 am, Eternally Showing Pat McAfee Network): Before Bret Bielema took over this game would have been much easier to predict, because (a) you could always count on the Illini to snuff it on the road, and (b) everyone would have been expecting since the Illini would have lost to Western Illinois the week before. But under Bielema, the Illini might legitimately be good. 

Duke utterly destroyed Elon last week. Unfortunately we're talking about Elon the college and not Elon the billionaire gadfly. What this means is that neither team has been tested yet. It's not hard to see, though, that Illinois is on a Team of Destiny trajectory right now. It should handle the Fighting Kryzjkjnswdlskis just fine. Illinois 34, The Only Stadium Is Cameron 20.

IOWA AT No. 16 IOWA STATE (11 am, FOX): The Big Enchilada. The Battle for HyChi and Casey's pizza. The game that looms pretty big in Iowans' minds but is roundly ignored by the rest of the college football world. I am not sold that Iowa State is actually the No. 16 team in the country, but I'm not sold that Iowa ought to be ranked either. This will come down to whether Iowa can run the ball against the Cyclone D, and whether Iowa's D can stop big plays. The latter seems at least likely; the former is questionable. Put it all together and I think Iowa State hoists the trophy. I hope it doesn't. I'm just trying to be honest here. Evil 24, Good 17.

NORTHWESTERN STATE AT MINNESOTA (11 am, BTN): There are two possibilities here. First, the Gophers utterly dominate the [Googles] ... Demons? Really? I thought Louisiana was too pious for a nickname like that! After the game P.J. Fleck talks about how hard a game it was and how Northwestern State is an opponent you really can't look past.

The other is that the Gophers struggle because they have no offense, and Fleck says the same thing. Whistling Past the Graveyard 31, In Life There Are No Guar-On-Teez 10.

AKRON AT NEBRASKA (6:30 pm, BTN): The Zips lost to Wyoming last week, 10-0, at home. Life is too short to give the smallest portion of a rat's bonkus about games like this.

Not that that will slow down Nebraska fans, of course.

Rhule of Law 48, College Football NPC 0.

MIDDLE TENNESSEE AT WISCONSIN (3 pm, FS1): This is the second of only two games I had slated as "guaranteed victory" for Wisconsin this season. The other was last week's game against Fake Miami, which turned out to be a losswin for the Badgers. The only upside is that now I feel Wisconsin might have a puncher's chance against Alabama next week, though that's not based on anything the Badgers showed last weekend. I think Coach Fickell got the message and will be looking to put the spurs to an opponent that is supposed to be overmatched. Sconnie 37, Tennebelievin' 13.

Know Your Non-Conference Tomato Can: Middle Tennessee

Located in Murfreesboro, which is to Nashville what Indianola is to Des Moines, MTSU is a former teachers' college that grew up (but is still a teachers' college). The 500-acre campus hosts over 20,000 students and is noted for its music business program. I know! In Nashville! What are the odds?

Amy Lee, lead singer and prime mover behind Evanescence, attended MTSU for one semester. Other well-known MTSU alumni include nobody. Why did I pick this school to highlight? Northwestern State would have let me talk about Joe Delaney, for cryin' out loud.