MSU-Iowa: Big for both. Big big.

It is a game that means the world to Michigan State. It is a game that means the world to Iowa.

OK, maybe not the world to either one, but it's a big game. You couldn't ask for too much more for Game 10, for the season home-finale at Kinnick Stadium?

Dreams will be dashed on one side and the possibilities will be greater than ever on the other after Saturday's MSU-Iowa game. After the emotions of the pregame ceremony saluting Iowa's seniors has subsided, raw and meaningful November football will take over.

This game, more than a loss at Minnesota or a win over Michigan, will prove to be the one that told us the most about what the 2011 Hawkeyes were all about. When it was time to take an upper hand in the division race, knowing it had two road games remaining, was Iowa up to the challenge of knocking down Legends-leader Michigan State?

If 3-2 Iowa comes up short, its chances of winning its games at Purdue and Nebraska and then claiming a convoluted tiebreaker at 5-3 are smaller than miniscule. If the Hawkeyes lose today, they remove themselves from title-contention. The rest is just for pride and jockeying for bowl-position, and they don't raise banners for either of those.

If Michigan State wins, it puts an arm bar on the division race at 5-1 with games left against Indiana (home) and Northwestern (road). The arm bar becomes a choke hold if Nebraska falls at Penn State today.

Should the Spartans lose, they have again failed at Iowa. Last year it was a resounding 37-6 loss that cost them a perfect regular-season. Though they tied Ohio State and Wisconsin for the Big Ten title, the enormity of that beating in Iowa City helped keep MSU beneath the Badgers and Buckeyes in the final BCS standings. Wisconsin went to the Rose Bowl, Ohio State to the Sugar, and Michigan State took an 11-1 record to the Capital One.

The 49-7 hammer Alabama dropped on the Spartans in Orlando showed us not all 11-1 teams are automatically stamped with greatness.

But now, MSU can add to its significant achievements of edging Ohio State in Columbus and beating Wisconsin on college football's Play of the Year in its Game of the Year to date (sorry, LSU-Alabama) in East Lansing.

Of course, the Spartans have also been walloped twice on the road, against Notre Dame (31-13) and Nebraska (24-3). You don't find many great teams that have two one-sided losses like that.

There will be years when the Legends Division has two great teams. Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska and Iowa will summon up powerful squads from time to time in the future.

But there also will be years when the Legends seems badly misnamed. This is one of those years. Which works to Iowa's benefit, since the Hawkeyes are far from legendary themselves.