Nebraska @ Iowa State preview

Last Meeting ( Oct 24, 2009 ) Iowa State 9, Nebraska 7

The No. 10 Nebraska Cornhuskers (7-1, 3-1 Big 12) travel to Ames, Iowa, this Saturday for a showdown with the Iowa State Cyclones (5-4, 3-2 Big 12).

The Huskers are coming off consecutive wins against previously unbeaten foes. Iowa State may not enter the game undefeated, but the Cyclones do have something on Nebraska: They handed the Huskers their ugliest loss of the 2009 season.

Nebraska committed eight turnovers last year in a 9-7 loss in front of their home crowd at Memorial Stadium. The loss was the low point of the season for the Huskers, who won their next five games, and narrowly missed a Big 12 Championship.

The Huskers enter the game on the heels of two exceptional offensive performances. Two weeks ago, quarterback Taylor Martinez took to the air and threw for a freshman record 323 yards in a win at previously unbeaten Oklahoma State. A week later. Martinez was knocked out early, but senior running back Roy Helu Jr. ran for a school-record 307 yards while dismantling Missouri, which was also undefeated at the time.

Iowa State is coming off two straight wins of its own, including one over the same Texas team that handed the Huskers their only loss of the season. But the Cyclones have hovered around .500 most of the year, losing big to Iowa, Utah and Oklahoma thus far this season. The last of those was a 52-0 shellacking by the Sooners.

Nebraska’s recipe for success on Saturday? Hang onto the ball. The running joke among Husker faithful this week is that even if the Huskers can limit their turnovers to five, they should be able to outlast the Cyclones. Anything is better than eight.

Look for a steady dose of now-healthy Martinez and Helu, and a heaping helping of a Blackshirts defense that shined last week.

The Cyclones will look for quarterback Austen Arnaud to make big plays, while running back Alexander Robinson must pound the Huskers on the ground, and the defense needs to play its opportunistic best. The Cyclones are near the bottom of the Big 12 in nearly every offensive category, but their record shows they are able to put together winning efforts from week to week.

The game marks the final Big 12 matchup between the two schools. Nebraska will join the Big Ten Conference in 2011.