Iowa and Iowa State meet Sept. 12, 2026, in Iowa City. Here’s the history behind the Cy-Hawk rivalry and what to know before kickoff.
For one Saturday every September, Iowa has a very important question to answer: Are you wearing black and gold or cardinal and gold?
The Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series is a statewide event that divides families, workplaces, and friend groups, sometimes very politely and sometimes not at all. Even people who don’t follow college football all season tend to have an opinion when the Iowa Hawkeyes and Iowa State Cyclones meet.
And this year, the rivalry is headed back to Iowa City. Iowa will host Iowa State at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., and the game will air on NBC. It will be just the third time the football rivalry has been played on primetime in Iowa City.
A rivalry that goes back more than a century
The Hawkeyes and Cyclones first met on the football field in 1894, beginning a series that has now stretched across more than 130 years.
The two schools played regularly through 1934 before the series went on a remarkably long hiatus. For more than four decades, there was no annual Iowa-Iowa State football game at all. That changed in 1977.
The Greater Des Moines Athletic Club created the original Cy-Hawk Trophy, giving the rivalry something tangible to play for when the two teams resumed their series. Iowa Gov. Robert D. Ray presented the first trophy to the winner in 1977. Since then, the game has become an annual September tradition, with one exception in 2020, when the rivalry was not played because of the pandemic.
The game has never been played anywhere other than the two campuses. It alternates between Iowa City and Ames, with the Hawkeyes hosting in even-numbered years and the Cyclones hosting in odd-numbered years. Iowa leads the all-time football series 47-25, according to the schools’ current game information.
But the overall record doesn’t begin to tell the full story of the modern rivalry. Iowa has dominated. Then Iowa State has made things interesting.
The Hawkeyes owned the rivalry for a long stretch, winning 15 consecutive games between 1983 and 1997—the longest winning streak in series history. But Iowa State answered with a memorable run of its own, winning five straight from 1998 through 2002. The series has continued to swing back and forth since then.
Iowa won six consecutive meetings from 2015 through 2021. More recently, though, the Cyclones have had the upper hand. Iowa State won three of the last four meetings entering the 2026 game, including the 2024 matchup at Kinnick Stadium and last year’s game in Ames.
That is part of what makes Cy-Hawk so entertaining—and, depending on your allegiance, incredibly stressful. The rankings don’t always matter. Home-field advantage hasn’t always mattered much, either. Close games have become common, and recent matchups have repeatedly come down to one or two big plays.
There is also the fact that bragging rights last an entire year. That’s a lot to put on one September football game.
What exactly is the Cy-Hawk Trophy?
The trophy itself has had a little bit of a journey.
The original Cy-Hawk Trophy was introduced in 1977 and featured a football player in a classic running-back pose, along with depictions of Iowa’s Herky the Hawk and Iowa State’s Cy the Cardinal.
That trophy was replaced ahead of the 2011 season with a new design that, well, did not go over especially well.
The replacement trophy featured a family of corn farmers and quickly drew criticism from fans—including former Iowa coach Hayden Fry. The design was eventually scrapped, and the rivalry temporarily used another trophy.
A redesigned Cy-Hawk Trophy arrived in 2012 and is the one used today. The current version incorporates both mascots and Iowa corn, making a lot more sense for a game between the Hawkeyes and Cyclones than the previous attempt.
Cy-Hawk is sticking around
In July, Iowa and Iowa State announced a verbal agreement to extend the football series through the 2031 season.
That means the teams are currently scheduled to meet every year for the next five years, with future games alternating between the two campuses. After the 2026 matchup in Iowa City, the rivalry heads to Ames on Sept. 11, 2027.
Future games are scheduled for:
- Sept. 9, 2028, in Iowa City
- Sept. 8, 2029, in Ames
- Sept. 7, 2030, in Iowa City
- Sept. 6, 2031, in Ames
All six of the currently scheduled games, from 2026 through 2031, are set for the second week of the college football season.
It’s also more than one game
While the football matchup gets most of the attention, the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series is actually a yearlong competition between the two schools.
The schools compete in a variety of sports, with points awarded throughout the academic year. Football is worth three points, softball competitions are worth one point each, and most other matchups are worth two points.
For the 2026-27 season, the series includes competitions in soccer, volleyball, cross country, wrestling, basketball, swimming and diving, tennis, and softball, among others. The football game is the biggest date on the schedule, but it is part of a much larger competition between the two athletic programs.
And then there’s the tailgating
Of course, no Cy-Hawk game is complete without talking about the scene outside the stadium.
Both Ames and Iowa City know how to host a football Saturday, and both fan bases will absolutely tell you why their tailgating experience is superior. That debate probably isn’t getting settled anytime soon.
This year, Iowa City gets the party. With a 6:30 p.m. kickoff, fans will have plenty of time to settle into their game-day routines before heading toward Kinnick Stadium.
The night-game atmosphere should only add to the intensity. Iowa’s athletic department noted that the 2026 meeting will be just the third primetime Cy-Hawk game played in Iowa City, joining the 2002 and 2016 contests.
And once the game kicks off, everything that happened in the parking lots, at the tailgates, and on social media becomes secondary.
