Iowa is coming off a rough 31-0 blowout against Penn State in the whiteout game, that left a lot more questions than answer about this Hawkeye squad. The question now is, how do they respond?

The Hawkeyes are welcoming in a spiraling Michigan State team that has been throttled at home the last 2 weeks against Washington and Maryland. The Spartans have just fired Head Coach Mel Tucker is the midst of controversy and now the program is looking to right the ship.

Michigan State is led by junior QB Noah Kim. This is Kim’s first season starting and so far he has thrown for 897 yards and 6 TDs this season, while also throwing 3 INTs. Kim has struggled the last 2 weeks having only a 38.7% completion percentage against Washington and just a 56.3% completion percentage against Maryland. Kim had some solid outings in weeks 1 & 2 so he’s looking to get back to that form.

On the ground, Michigan State is led by sophomore RB Nathan Carter, who has had a fantastic season to date. So far this year, Carter has taken 73 carries for 369 yards and 4 TDs. Carter is a transfer from UCONN, but he’s already on pace to shatter all of his career highs. He already has a career high in TDs, and that number is only going to get higher. Carter has also caught 9 passes for 60 yards this year, so he’s a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield as well.

Carter is no Kenneth Walker, but he is a very talented back and can kill you if you aren’t careful. He’s averaging over 5 yards per carry and has broken 100 yards in 2 games this season, and also ran for 97 yards last week against Maryland. If you don’t build an early lead against the Spartans, Carter is good enough to keep them in games against good teams. You shut Carter down, you shut this Michigan State team down.

Michigan State’s leading receiver this year is freshman Jaron Glover. Glover is in his second season out of Sarasota, Florida, and he’s starting off this campaign in a big way. He’s caught 9 passes for 203 yards so far, including 3 catches for 75 yards to start the season against Central Michigan. The Spartans already have 5 pass-catchers that have at least 100 yards for the season, so they really spread the ball all over the field, and that could be something to look out for. They don’t really care who is getting the stats, they don’t have a straight up go-to guy.

Defensively, this MSU team is lackluster at best. Washington and Maryland combined for 72 points in their road victories, so there theoretically should be opportunities there for the floundering Hawkeye offense to try to make some plays.

An underrated storyline for this game is the fact that Iowa’s 2 big transfers this past offseason are former Michigan Wolverines. This should come as no surprise, but the Wolverines typically don’t love the Spartans, so there should still be some bad blood there. Cade McNamara and Erick All have been apart of some battles with the Spartans, including the Spartans beating Michigan the year McNamara led them to the college football playoff.

This should be a relatively easy game for Iowa if they have aspirations of winning the Big Ten West. This MSU team has no direction and no head coach, you cannot afford to lose this game if you are Iowa. My Prediction? Iowa 27-MSU 10.