Salutations! I am both an Iowa student and season ticket holder since 2002. I will gladly give you the Iowa view. I must say the posters here are pretty well informed, and I would tend to agree with most of what has been said about Iowa. Iowa fans can be obnoxious, though we have been humbled by a few bad losses to lower FBS and FCS teams.
It is true that most of our fan base doesn't take these games seriously. I think personally games like this don't do either side any good(outside of the payments to Wyo). I believe they should create classes like they have in high school football. Based on financial, attendance, win/loss. Mountain West, MAC, Sun Belt, AAC, CUSA should all be one division with their own national championship. It is unfair that these conference teams are lumped with teams that clearly out match and out recruit them.
Iowa fans are concerned about the qb situation. Tyler Wiegers is the vet, however he hasn't had any snaps in his career. Stanley the sophmore had the clean up snaps in games. They tore his redshirt off. It will end up being Stanley. The logical choice is to have a qb, like your Allen who is a 2-3 year starter.
The past few years the o-line in my opinion is overrated. Beathard the starting qb for the past 2 years took a lot of shots over over that time. Hobbled him. Last year was rather troubling. They are veteran though, so hopefully they will clean things up.
The Receiving corps is the most troubling aspect in my opinion. They have no returning players over 6'1. All most teams really have to do is stop the run because Iowa's receivers aren't allowed to break off routes. Most teams can afford to blitz because they don't go over the middle. Matt Vandeberg is a redshirt senior from last year due to his injury. Capable, but tends to be a security blanket. I would argue that got him injured last year.
The tight-ends are numerous and large. That will be an X-factor. If they can get back to targeting the TE, that might make up for the lack of experience at WR
Running backs are solid. However they tend to get banged up due to overuse. Which will be a problem with a weak receiving corps and new starting qb.
DL is sold. as are the LBs. Defense is never an issue. They only issue is that the offense tends to leave them on the field too much.
Iowa has lost Desmond King to graduation in the defensive backfield, however they have a lot of promising players. however our promising sophomore Manny Rugumba is suspended for the game for violating team rules, so that is trouble. It surprises me Iowa fans are worried about the DBs. Jake Gervase looked pretty good at the spring game. Got speed. A bit of crazy to from the looks of him.
If Iowa takes this game seriously, they should win handily. Kirk Ferentz is arguably the best coach Iowa has ever had. However he doesn't take these games as serious as his predecessor Hayden Fry, the other great coach who was there 19 years. Fry went out of his way to flatten teams like Wyoming, and FCS opponents. Ferentz as an NFL background tends to treat it like preseason. And perhaps with the arrogance that a team in the power 5 conferences should be able to push around such a team. I was not surprised when Iowa lost to North Dakota St. As many of your posters have indicated, Iowa plays to the level of their opponent. Before the Michigan game, I thought they were done. I don't know how they managed to beat Michigan and Nebraska. They certainly did not deserve to play Florida last year. They always get the New Years day bowl because of the fan following.
Iowa struggles against good quarterbacks. It's easy to beat the defense because they give you a lot. If the Iowa offense is clicking, the bend but dont break D works. However Iowa has so many question marks. The offense can be inconsistent. They played Jordan Lynch and Northern Illinois in 2014 and lost. They played Easton Stick last year. If Wyo can score on every drive, they could win. The Iowa offense tends to choke in those situations.
The consensus view in the Hawkeye camp is 6-8 wins. The funny thing is that Iowa plays Ohio St at home this year. One would think that is a loss and Wyoming is the win. I don't see it that way. Iowa is the team the Big Ten bigs don't prepare for. Anything can happen with Iowa.
Iowa "should" win. I'd say if they play their game, get the running game going, 35-21. It comes down to the Iowa players wanting to play the game. They have trouble with that. If it's a shootout, Wyo might get the upset.
I'll repeat what I said to start. This game does no one any good. Iowa fans don't like these games, the players don't take these games seriously. I rather enjoy these games personally as a sociologist. I enjoy seeing localities being represented nationwide. Our states are rather similar in that regard. We have no pro teams, and rely on our colleges to represent us. However practically for Iowa and in this new era of playoffs, power 5s are going to need to play power 5s. I would rather see Iowa go 0-12 playing power 5 rather than get a few cheap wins and a meaningless bowl game where we get hammered by a better team. And from Wyoming's perspective, unless your team has an undefeated year beating a power 5 team, you might make the same bowl 3-4 years in a row like Louisiana-Lafayette. Their own fans started to complain after multiple years of going to the New Orleans Bowl. Those teams deserve a division of their own so they can play like schools for their own National title. I'd favor promotion and relegation as well. Though I don't see the established teams going for it.
I wish Wyoming luck this season outside of our own match up. By the way, Tanner Gentry is looking pretty good with the Bears.