Explaining ¡El Assico!, the greatest Iowa-Iowa State rivalry game of them all

The Hawkeyes and Cyclones are going to play a bad football game (4:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, FOX), sure, but the great part is you have nothing better to do at the time.

Q: What is ¡El Assico!?

A: Only the best rivalry game involving Iowa State and Iowa played all year long.

Q: Isn't there only one game involving Iowa State and Iowa?

A: Maybe, but that is beside the point. The point is that Week 2 is so sparsely populated with games of interest that ¡El Assico! easily stands out as one of the top five of the weekend. If you're going to watch ¡El Assico!, you'll need to know a few things about what you've signed yourself up for, and what you can expect. Which is pain.

Q: Why pain?

A: Because ¡El Assico! brings out the worst in both teams. They fumble. They punt. They punt some more. They play down to each other, or under each other, and sometimes rent heavy equipment and begin tunneling under the very surface of the earth to submarine even your lowest expectations. They do not score.

¡El Assico! hears your order for a steak, and returns to the table holding a charred hamburger patty. You ordered this steak medium-rare, btw. ¡El Assico! is so bad at this and refuses to buy a meat thermometer or apologize.

Q: For example? The pain, that is?

A: We can start with 2014. Iowa State won ¡El Assico!, 20-17, on a last-minute field goal. The kicker had already missed it in a previous attempt, but Kirk Ferentz called a timeout that allowed Iowa State an ultimately successful shot. This came after Iowa blew a halftime lead to an Iowa State team that would go 2-10.

Q: This is a pattern?

A: No, this is beyond that. This is tradition. In 2013, Iowa won, 27-21, but still had to put away a 3-9 team by recovering an onside kick and ending a comeback bid by a gimpy quarterback. In 2012's ¡El Assico! it was worse: Iowa State led 9-3 at halftime, Iowa State scored zero points after the half, and Iowa needed just ONE SINGLE MERCIFUL TOUCHDOWN to win. The Hawkeyes got nothing and lost, 9-6, in a game so ghastly it came full circle to "horrifying, but also strangely compelling."

In 2011, Iowa and Iowa State combined for an astonishing (for this cheap-ass, points-pinching rivalry) 85 points, something ¡El Assico! could only achieve by playing three overtimes of American football. In 2006-2010, Iowa State went 17 quarters without scoring a touchdown against Iowa. The 2007 ¡El Assico! featured an ISU team that opened the season by losing to Northern Iowa and Kent State, so of course it won 15-13 on a late field goal.

Q: Who dominates this rivalry?

A: Besides sudden onset mediocrity? Iowa, which leads ¡El Assico!, 40-22. That should be mentioned alongside another weird fact. The last three coaches at Iowa State have records below a .400 win percentage, and yet are all better than .500 against Iowa and Ferentz. Even if Iowa wins this year's ¡El Assico!, Ferentz -- whose record is 116-85 overall -- would be 8-9 in ¡El Assico!

The Cyclones are the neighborhood speed bump everyone else speeds through. Ferentz breaks an axle on it every other time he drives over it.

Q: Why?

A: Rivalry? ¡El Assico! tried to warn everyone by posting the lowest possible score in football: 2-0 in a 1906 Iowa State victory. To be fair, Iowans appear to have made a good faith effort to kill ¡El Assico!, skipping the game entirely after 1920 and not remembering to play it until 1933. That revival lasted two games; after 1934, Iowa and Iowa State dropped it for four peaceful, ¡El Assico!-free decades.

Q: WHY DID THEY BRING IT BACK?

A: Because politicians are bad and have bad ideas. Under pressure from the governor and the state legislature, Iowa and Iowa State thawed out the prehistoric corpse of ¡El Assico! in 1977. To commemorate the event and motivate players, Iowa State's Earle Bruce had his team wear special jerseys with "BEAT IOWA" across the chest. The Cyclones lost a 12-10 horror show in which neither team scored in the second half.

Like we said: ¡El Assico! tried to warn you, Iowa, and to this day you refuse to listen.

Q: Is there an ¡El Assico! trophy?

A: There are several, including one you may find in a Des Moines pawn shop. The old Cy-Hawk Trophy depicted a football player refusing to look at a football, symbolizing most sane reactions to ¡El Assico! A new trophy sponsored by corn farmers emerged in 2011. It appeared to depict a family worshipping corn, was universally reviled, and earned this quote from legendary Iowa Hawkeyes coach Hayden Fry:

'The farmer, family and corn is all wonderful, but I don't really get the relationship to a football game.'

A new, nondescript ¡El Assico! trophy is in use.It resembles an elaborate agricultural paperweight of some sort.

Q: Why call it ¡El Assico!?

A: Because like El Clasico, this pits two passionate rivals in an annual contest.

Because it's kind of an assy game, even if one team is pretty good at the time. Because this game is built on a hellmouth of mediocrity and rarely fails to live down to its fiery foundations. Because it's fun to fill up your lungs, place both hands up in a praise position, and bellow, ¡EL ASSSICOOOOOOOOO! Because branding a game between two hordes of Cornfield Jimmies with a butt joke based on an immortal international sports rivalry's nickname makes the whole thing seem way more festive than it should be.

Because, despite all our ridicule and mockery, it's a dysfunctional classic in its own right.

Q: Is ¡El Assico! important this year?

A: Oh, not one bit. Neither Iowa nor Iowa State harbors any realistic goals beyond making a bowl, and for Iowa State, even that might be a pipe dream. This is not a conference game, nor a game that seems to have any connection to how either team performs for the rest of the season.

Someone will fumble at the worst imaginable time and the opponent will fail to capitalize. Getting to 30 points is going to be a struggle, and everyone watching -- including the people in the stands -- will be confused and angry. Watching ¡El Assico! will be like watching via webcam as novice boaters get lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and it's like that EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

Q: Should I watch it?

A: Oh hell yes.