Iowa State vs. Iowa: Who Won the 2026 Game?

Iowa beat Iowa State 16–13 on September 12, 2026, at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Caden Buhr’s 42-yard field goal with 15 seconds remaining supplied the winning points, according to Iowa State’s game recap.

The important distinction when searching for this matchup: 16–13 also describes the 2025 result, but Iowa State won that game. The year and the winning team matter more than the score alone.

How Iowa turned a fourth-quarter deficit into a win

The official box score shows a 10–10 halftime tie, followed by a third quarter in which Iowa State moved ahead 13–10. Iowa then scored the fourth quarter’s only six points.

Buhr’s 32-yard field goal tied the game with 6:22 remaining. His 42-yarder with 15 seconds left broke that tie.

That sequence explains something the final margin alone cannot: Iowa’s winning kick did not erase the entire deficit in one play. The Hawkeyes first drew even, kept Iowa State from adding to its score, and then took the lead. The comeback’s scoring came through two field goals rather than a late touchdown.

It also puts Iowa State’s position in perspective. The Cyclones held a lead entering the fourth quarter, but that advantage did not survive the final period. A close final score and a fourth-quarter lead are different descriptions of how a game unfolded; both matter here.

Why an older 16–13 result can point to the wrong winner

Iowa’s 2026 schedule records the September 12 home matchup as a 16–13 win. Its 2025 schedule records the September 6 game in Ames as a 13–16 loss.

Those entries are consistent, not contradictory: the same two teams finished with the same pair of scores in different years, with opposite winners. The venue provides another useful distinction—2026 was in Iowa City; 2025 was in Ames.

For the 2026 matchup, the answer is therefore unambiguous: Iowa won, with Buhr’s late field goal separating the teams. An older result showing Iowa State on top belongs to the previous season.