Saturday’s Iowa State-Iowa game is a prologue to the best football season in our state’s history. And if not, at least this isn’t Florida.

It’s not easy to hit more home runs than everyone else covering Iowa and Iowa State athletics, but my goodness, I’m going to do it today.

This is said, by the way, against the backdrop of the fact that most of us in the media industry are dealing with corporate overlords who we have to please. Encouraging your worker bees to be fanboys and fangirls seems to be on page 1 of your instruction manual.

At least none of these organizations are Russian assets, at least until proven otherwise.

Rather than analyze Saturday’s Iowa State-Iowa football game — as if anyone could correctly predict the predictably weird things that will happen — let’s get right to it. The winner of this game will go to the College Football Playoff.

Just like the loser.

Hopefully one of them gets a top-four berth and a first-round bye, and the other gets a first-round home game. Expecting both to be in the top-four seems a bit over the top, but all it probably takes is for them to be a combined 25-1 on Saturday.

(By the way, I’m really annoyed that I didn’t call last Saturday’s Illinois State-Iowa game “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Do you think Kirk Ferentz saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? I certainly don’t think so.)

However, if you find these predictions a little optimistic, please take your doubts and the like elsewhere. They are spoiling our mood.

Saturday is the start of what is without a doubt the best football season in Iowa. This game at Kinnick Stadium is simply great. Great? It will end up being more meaningful than any Cy Hawk game in history.

Speaking of “Cy-Hawk,” I’ve railed against the show’s incredibly boring name for years, but 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 for some hilarious fun, but please don’t take ‘hilarious’ literally.”

Not even the awful name “Cy-Hawk” can take away from this year’s matchup. Those across the country who think the previous game between Texas and Michigan is more important might as well wake up and smell the sweet corn.

You dare to scoff? Fine. You would have done the same two weeks ago if I had told you that Iowa State and Iowa football would be viewed far more highly on September 7 than Florida State and Florida.

Florida is actually flatter than Iowa. The highest elevation in Florida is 345 feet, half the height of Iowa City and almost three times lower than Ames.

As sea levels inevitably continue to rise and Florida becomes wetter, the (for now) landlocked states of Iowa State and Iowa will have increasingly better chances for the stars of Florida high school football.

Melt, you arctic ice sheets! Right, Cyclone and Hawkeye fans?

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

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

Texas and Oklahoma are gone from the Big 12 and have been replaced by someone who thinks he’s bigger than both of them combined. Maybe Deion Sanders is just that, since he’s featured in TV commercials with Nick Saban and the Aflac Duck. Boy, there are a lot of ducks in college football.

What were we talking about again? Oh yes, the civil war on Saturday in Kinnick. But you can’t call it a civil war, because that’s what the Oregon-Oregon State game is called. And you can’t call it a holy war, because that’s what the Utah-BYU game is called.

Don’t worry. There’s always the next war coming.

So let’s recap: Iowa State seems to have a good team, Iowa seems to have a good team, and oh, the performance they’re going to put in.

There is so much more that could be said about Saturday’s game, so much enthusiasm and excitement is palpable before the sparks fly. But I will invoke the wisdom that Dr. Frasier Crane shared with us back in the day at a Boston bar called Cheers:

Have fun tonight everyone. Everyone Wang Chung tonight.

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