Before we get into what each team does well lets take a look at strength of schedule. Iowa had to play Northern Illinois in their non conference schedule and have played the 3 best teams in the conference in Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin. Nebraska has not had to face either Ohio state and Wisconsin and they were completely dominated at home by an over rated UCLA team. In fact Nebraska needed a hail mary to beat the worst team in the Big Ten.
When it comes to match ups this game is all about running the ball and stopping the run so lets start off by looking at run defense. Nebraska has definitely improved, but hidden in their ranking for ypc run defense is the fact that they let 6 teams run for 195+ yards and they have allowed 18 rushing TD's. Iowa has only let 3 teams do that and they have allowed 4 rushing TD's to the two best running teams in the conference (arguably the country). Both Ohio State and Wisconsin are #1 and #2 in YPC and Nebraska just has not had to go up against a team like that.
Okay, so Nebraska has the better running game with Abduallah however it's not by much. The biggest issue here other than Iowa's experienced linebacking crew is the fact that Nebraska has another QB in there. Ron Kellogg will start over an injured Tommy Armstrong. Kellogg is not very good at running the zone option which is what makes Abdualla better than he is. Kellogg does have a strength passing the ball, but now there is significant tape on him and his tendencies after he threw the ball 34 times against Penn State.
In the end this is a Nebraska team that's lucky to be 8-3 and an Iowa team that's hungry to finally beat them in Big10 play. Special teams, and field position will be critical and Iowa has the best punt return game in the Big Ten while Nebraska is last. Nebraska also has issues with turnovers and fumbles. I'm thinking we will see some fumbles as Nebraska tries to run their usual option offense with another new QB.
