Saturday’s Iowa State-Iowa game is a prologue to the greatest football season in our state’s history. If it isn’t, it certainly isn’t Florida.

It’s not easy to hit more home runs than the others covering the Iowa and Iowa State track and field games, but I’m going to do it today.

By the way, that said, most of us in the media have corporate overlords to please. Encouraging their worker bees to be fanboys and fangirls seems to be on page 1 of their playbook.

In any case, none of these organizations are Russian property, at least until proven otherwise.

Rather than analyze Saturday’s Iowa State-Iowa football game — as if anyone can accurately predict the predictably strange things that will happen — let’s get to the point. The winner of this game advances to the College Football Playoff.

Just like the loser.

Hopefully, one of the two gets a top-four seed and a first-round bye, and the other gets a first-round game at home. Expecting both to be in the top four seems like a stretch, but all that’s probably needed is for them to be a combined 25-1 after Saturday.

(By the way, I really regret not declaring last Saturday’s Illinois State-Iowa game “Ferentz Bueller’s Day Off.” Do you think Kirk Ferentz watched “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”? I sure didn’t.)

Anyway, if those predictions seem a little optimistic to you, please take your doubts and such elsewhere. You’re ruining our buzz.

Saturday is the prologue to Iowa’s greatest football season, bar none. This game at Kinnick Stadium is simply big. Big? It will ultimately hold more meaning than any Cy Hawk game in history.

Speaking of “Cy-Hawk,” I’ve complained for years about the show’s incredibly boring name. Yet no one ever lifts a finger to do away with it and come up with something much better, like “The I-35/I-80 Road to a Riotous Good Time, But Please Don’t Take ‘Riotous’ Literally Game.”

Even the hideous “Cy-Hawk” moniker can’t diminish this year’s clash. For those in the country who think the previous game between Texas and Michigan is more important, you might as well wake up and smell the sweet corn.

Dare you mock? Fine. You would have done the same thing two weeks ago if I had told you that Iowa State and Iowa football would be far more respected than Florida State and Florida on September 7th.

Florida is flatter than Iowa, by the way. The highest point in Florida is 345 feet, half as high as Iowa City and almost three times lower than Ames.

As sea levels continue to inevitably rise and Florida gets wetter, (for now) landlocked Iowa State and Iowa are looking increasingly likely to be stars for Florida’s high school football players.

Melt, ye Arctic ice caps! Fans of Amirite, Cyclone and Hawkeye?

The world is changing, you know. Four new schools have joined the Big Ten and eight new ones have started Big 12 play since the Cyclones and Hawkeyes last met in Kinnick Stadium. That was two whole years ago.

Jim Harbaugh is no longer in the Big Ten. The wacky Oregon Duck mascot has taken his place.

Texas and Oklahoma are gone from the Big 12, replaced by someone who thinks he’s bigger than both of them combined. Maybe it’s Deion Sanders, seeing as he’s in TV commercials with Nick Saban and the Aflac Duck. Man, there are a lot of ducks in college football.

What were we talking about again? Ah yes, Saturday’s Civil War in Kinnick. Although, it can’t be called the Civil War, because that’s what they call the Oregon-Oregon State game. And it can’t be called the Holy War, because that’s what they call the Utah-BYU game.

Don’t worry. There’s always another war around the corner.

Let’s sum this up by saying that Iowa State looks like it has a good team, Iowa looks like it has a good team, and oh, the places they’re going.

There is so much more to say about Saturday’s game, so much enthusiasm and excitement you can feel before your hair starts flying. But I will invoke the wisdom Dr. Frasier Crane shared at a Boston bar called “Cheers”:

Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight.

Mike Hlas has been named National Sports Media Association Iowa Sportswriter of the Year six times. Comments: (319) 398-8440; [email protected]