Fun Facts: Wyoming-Iowa

Look, you like fun. And, even in 2017, many people still embrace facts. So here begins another season of Fun Facts involving Iowa's football games.

I'm dropping them, as the kids say, on Mondays this season. That makes more time for fun, and on a day you need some. In the immortal words of Andy Kindler, am I right, ladies? In fact, Andy once took it to a higher plane with this tweet.

Iowa and Wyoming. Let's do this.

1. The two teams haven't met since the 1987 Holiday Bowl, a 20-19 Iowa win. Their other meeting was the Hawkeyes' 21-7 victory in 1953.

2. The Cowboys and Hawkeyes had one common opponent last season. Wyoming lost 52-17 to Nebraska, which lost 40-10 to Iowa.

3. The Hawkeyes are 8-1-1 against current Mountain West Conference teams. The Mountain West has two divisions, the Mountain and the West. Nice symmetry there.

4. Wyoming got nine votes in the USA TODAY coaches' preseason rankings. Iowa got five.

5. Wyoming has 13 players from Wyoming.

6. The Cowboys have two Iowans, guard Cole Turner of Cedar Rapids and cornerback Rico Gafford from West Des Moines. Iowa has no one from Wyoming. Has it ever?

7. Wyoming is 1-14 in season-openers on the road.

8. The Cowboys have lost their last 10 games against teams from Power Five conferences. Their last win against one was at Tennessee in 2008.

9. Gary Barta was Wyoming's athletics director when he took a similar position at Iowa in 2006. The Cowboys were 4-7 in football in 2005. Six weeks before he left Wyoming for Iowa, Barta extended the contract of Cowboys coach Joe Glenn to 2010. Glenn was fired after the 2008 season, having gone 15-21 from 2006-2008.

10. Former Iowa basketball player Dale Reed is from Baggs, Wyo., population 440. He has been the boys' basketball coach at The Woodlands High School in suburban Houston for the last 12 years.

11. Wyoming and Hawaii compete for the Paniolo Trophy. 'Paniolo' is the Hawaiian word for 'cowboy.'

12. Wyoming, Iowa, is a town of 515 people along the banks of the Little Bear Creek. It is 54 miles from Iowa City. The Wyoming Area Betterment Meeting meets every fourth Thursday.

13. Wyoming, the state, is 50th in the nation in population with 585,501 (2016), and is 49th in population-density with six people per square mile. Alaska is 50th with one person per square mile. Iowa is 36th, with 55.

14. Wyoming's home stadium is 7,220 feet above sea level, the highest in FBS.

15. According to the United States Geological Survey, Wyoming had 508 earthquakes from 2010-2015. Iowa had none.

16. Wyoming's alumni include former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and basketball player Fennis Dembo.

17. The Twitter handle of touted Cowboys quarterback Josh Allen is @J_Prodigy_5. That's not exactly modest.

18. Allen played at Firebaugh (Calif.) High School. Firebaugh, 45 miles northwest of Fresno. Fresno State, also in the Mountain West, didn't offer Allen a scholarship.

19. Firebaugh hasn't won a game since 2014. The Eagles lost their 2017 opener last Friday, 55-34 to Liberty High of Madera, Calif. They were 10-2 in 2013, Allen's senior season.

20. Allen grew up on a farm and participated in Future Farmers of America. The region he is from produces almonds, pistachios, cotton, alfalfa and melons.