Fun Facts: Iowa-Illinois, cannabis and corn edition

Old friends, bookends. Iowa and Illinois. “Old Friends” is a Simon and Garfunkel song from their album “Bookends.” They split up and stayed split up.

1. Illinois played two games this season before Iowa and five other Big Ten teams had played one.

2. The Illini lead the series 38-37-2, but Iowa has won the last eight meetings, and by an average margin of 22.4 points. The Hawkeyes haven’t lost in Champaign since 2008.

3. Illinois Coach Bret Bielema has won three Big Ten championships since Iowa’s last one, in 2004.

4. Iowa hasn’t turned the ball over in its last three games.

5. Illinois hasn’t been in the AP Top 25 since 2011, the last time it had a winning season.

6. The Hawkeyes are last among all Power Five conference teams in touchdown passes, with two.

7. The Illini lead the nation in scoring defense (8.4 points per game). They were 97th (34.9 ppg) two years ago. Iowa is third in scoring defense.

8. Both teams use punters from Melbourne, Australia. Iowa’s Tory Taylor averages 47.4 yards. Illinois’ Hugh Robertson averages 35.3. Taylor is 25. Robertson is 29. He is a former member of the Australian Army and Victoria Police.

9. Iowa and Illinois are two of the nine states represented in the Heartland Carwash Association.

10. Iowa has players from 16 different Illinois cities, including Glen Carbon, Glen Ellyn and Glenview. Illinois has one Iowan, wide receiver Kody Case of Lake City.

11. Illinois has transfers from 16 different FBS programs. Starting quarterback Tommy DeVito came from Syracuse. Star running back Chase Brown transferred from Western Michigan.

12. Brown has 25 rushes for 10 yards or more, six more than any other player in the nation. Iowa’s team has nine, which ranks last in the nation.

13. The last time the Hawkeyes were underdogs against Illinois was 2008 in Champaign. Iowa was a 2.5-point dog. It lost by 3. The over/under was 51 points. The score was 27-24.

14. Iowa has been shut out once in Kirk Ferentz’s 293 games as coach. That was against Illinois in 2000.

15. Illinois special teams coordinator Sean Snyder is the son of former Iowa offensive coordinator/Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder. Sean began his playing career at Iowa.

16. Cory Provus will do the play-by-play for the Big Ten Network telecast of this game. He does radio play-by-play for the Minnesota Twins.

17. Bielema’s daughters are named Briella and Brexli.

18. Illinois has 294 miles of toll roads. Iowa has none.

19. Iowa and Illinois were two-thirds of the Three-I League, which operated from 1901 to 1961. The Cedar Rapids Rabbits were in it. So were the Bloomington Bloomers, Moline Plowboys, Peoria Distillers, Quincy Infants, Davenport Prodigals, Dubuque Hustlers and Keokuk Kernels.

20. Iowa is the No. 1 corn-producing state. Illinois is No. 2. The top cash crop in Alaska is cannabis. Cannabis is legal in Illinois, not Iowa.