Fun Facts: Hawkeyes-Penn State: Ice cream edition

Now it's November, one of the most fun months.

Why? Because Major League Soccer settles its championship.

Just kidding. The real reasons are Thanksgiving and the end of the political campaigns. And the final four Saturdays of Big Ten regular-season football, I guess. So here are your Iowa-Penn State Fun Facts:

1. Iowa has won eight of the last 11 meetings in this series.

2. Penn State is in the Top 25 for the first time since December 2011. The Hawkeyes have won their last four meetings against ranked Nittany Lions teams, 24-23 against No. 3 PSU in 2008, 21-10 over No. 4 PSU in 2009, 24-3 over No. 20 PSU in 2010, and 42-35 in overtime over No. 12 PSU in 2002.

3. This is the first time Iowa has played two straight games against ranked opponents (Wisconsin, Penn State) since 2012.

4. The last time Iowa was held to three points or less was its most-recent game at Penn State, a 13-3 loss in 2012.

5. Iowa is 15-3 straight-up in true road venues over the past 3 1/2 seasons (dating back through 2013). It also is 15-3 against the point spread in those games, which David Jones of PennLive.com noted is the best such record over that period in all of FBS.

6. Penn State is 115th nationally in time of possession, Iowa 123rd.

7. Iowa has won its last three games and six of its last seven in the Eastern time zone.

8. The crowd at Penn State's Beaver Stadium will be larger than any two of road crowds combined that the Hawkeyes have played before. Iowa's three road games had crowds of 44,061 (Rutgers), 49,145 (Minnesota) and 40,239 (Purdue). Three of Penn State's home crowds have exceeded 100,000.

9. The Hawkeyes have no players from Pennsylvania. The Nittany Lions have no players from Iowa. Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz, however, grew up in Upper St. Clair, Pa.

10. Quarterback Christian Hackenberg left Penn State as a junior after the 2015 season to enter the NFL draft. He was a second-round pick of the New York Jets. He has yet to play in a regular-season game.

11. Penn State has had 61 linebackers selected in the NFL draft.

12. Nittany Lions coach James Franklin played college football at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, and was an assistant coach at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. On Oct. 15, Kutztown beat East Stroudsburg, 49-30, before a crowd of 2,470.

13. That game featured seven touchdown plays of 36 or more yards. Kutztown's Craig Reynolds rushed for 261 yards on 19 carries.

14. Matt Millen will do the color commentary for this game. He was a Penn State defensive tackle who had 18 tackles for his team in its 1977 Fiesta Bowl win over Arizona State.

15. The last three bowls in which Penn State has appeared were the TicketCity, Pinstripe and TaxSlayer.

16. Iowa is coming off a bye week. Big Ten teams are 9-3 coming off byes this year, and one of the losses was Wisconsin's in overtime against Ohio State. Penn State beat Ohio State the week after the Nittany Lions had a bye.

17. Why would you go to Penn State and not stop at the Berkey Creamery on campus? Peachy Paterno still is on the menu. But you may prefer Mint Nittany.

18. The State College Spikes, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, were the 2016 champions of the New York-Penn League. They swept the Hudson Valley Renegades in the championship series after defeating the Staten Island Yankees in the semifinals. The Spikes went 50-26 in the regular season, which was much better than the Auburn Doubledays, Batavia Muckdogs, Vermont Lake Monsters, or West Virginia Black Bears.