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This Iowa team is not an easy team to figure out. They played a whale of a game against Penn State and for all intents and purposes, had the then-undefeated Nittany Lions beat until Saquon Barkley put the team on his back and willed Penn State to a 21-19 win. On the other side, you have a team that has lost a pair of 17-10 games to Michigan State and Northwestern. Neither of those losses are horrible by any means on face value but breaking down how each of those games went down, Iowa just really did not show up or have much success doing much of anything on offense.

The Hawkeyes opened the year on a three-game winning streak including a thrilling 44-41 win over Iowa State, but maybe that was before Iowa State became the giant-killing Iowa State that we see today with wins over Oklahoma and TCU.

Something that cannot be lost however is that Iowa does not lose by much at home. You have to go back to 2013 for the last time that the Hawkeyes lost at home by more than one score. The Buckeyes are at 17-point favorite. Wisconsin was the last team to go into Kinnick and win by a margin of that size, also in 2013 in a 28-9 win over the Hawkeyes.

History is all well and good to look and talk about but does it have much bearing on a game today? We don't know about that, so we are going to break down what both teams are made of and where some key advantages may be had in this week's Tale of the Tape.

Last week's game against Penn State was not perfect for the Ohio State secondary by any stretch but it took some pretty remarkable plays for the Nittany Lions to find the end zone. DaeSean Hamilton was on the receiving end of a near-perfect throw that the Ohio State defender could do nothing about and DeAndre Thompkins won a 50-50 ball that was called an interception at first and then overturned by replay to award him a touchdown (sorry, likely the right call). Those two plays accounted for 50 of Penn State's 192 passing yards on the day. So outside of those two scoring plays, Penn State completed 14 passes for 142 yards on the Buckeyes. That's it. It is hard to single out any of the defensive backs to say one had a head-and-shoulders better game than anyone else. Everyone was on the good side of plays and the not-so-good side of plays as well. But when the Buckeyes needed to knuckle under and make some stops late, it was a team effort. Now, the Buckeyes will be going against a passing offense that has been at/over 250 yards twice on the year (Iowa State in OT, Illinois). Much like last week, the Buckeyes will have to keep a talented tight end, Noah Fant, in their sights as the most prolific scoring threat on the team. Good news is they won't have to worry much about a mobile quarterback.

Iowa's passing offense has been somewhat consistent. In the team's last six games, the team has completed 'in the teens' in terms of passes completed and the total yardage that Nathan Stanley has thrown for has been just a little north of 200 yards a game. Stanley has only been better than 60-percent in passing in one game and hovers closer to 55-percent in his passing. Over the span of the past two games, Stanley has thrown two touchdowns against two interceptions and has thrown a grand total of seven touchdowns (three versus bottom-dweller Illinois) in give Big Ten games. There is no 'go-to' guy in terms of receiving yardage for the Hawkeyes with five pass catchers on the board for 200 yards receiving or more. Nick Easley is the favorite target with 36 grabs on the year, almost twice as much as anyone else on the team. Even with all of those catches, he is averaging only 47 YPG receiving but is averaging 10.4 YPR. Tight end Noah Fant has a team-lead five touchdowns and has been the recipient of the aforementioned two passing touchdowns over the last eight-plus quarters for the Hawkeyes. This does not mean that the Buckeyes will be able to just mail it in on pass defense, if anything it may be a little more dangerous in terms of not knowing who might have the hot hand, if anyone is able to get a hot hand, going into the game. EDGE: Ohio State