VIDEO: University of Iowa and University of Nebraska Battle for Facebook Supremacy

The Hawkeyes are set to take on their hated/arbitary cross divisional rival Purdue on the football field this Saturday. But everyone knows the main event is coming a week later, when the Hawkeyes take on the Cornhuskers of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

On that day, another battle between the two schools will be settled. The battle to see which school will have the most Facebook likes on the main university pages before the football game kicks off on Black Friday.

Eric Page, Assistant Director of University of Iowa Creative Services, said the idea came up right about after the creative services department reviewed UI's Facebook numbers and found that it had the lowest number of likes (14,000) in the Big Ten, trailing even new member Nebraska (17,000).

Then someone had a bright idea. The two schools would use the competitiveness of fans to beat their border state brethren as motivation for an endeavor that would benefit the Facebook pages of both schools.

"We felt like we could take advantage of that competitive spirit that would be happening anyway in a way that would be beneficial to both schools," Page said.

Has the idea worked?

Well, with only a shoe string budget, updated standings graphic and promotional YouTube videos (attached to the story), Nebraska and Iowa have managed to increase their likes on their University pages by over about 30,000.

The two schools toyed with bringing in a promotional aspect, or having a prize at the end, but Page said these plans fell through. In the end, though, Page said he thinks it probably wouldn't have generated any more Likes even if there was a monetary donation at stake.

"It's pride on the line," Page said. "I don't know if having a $10,000 donation up for grabs would have made a whole lot of difference."

As of the writing of this article, with a week left to go, Iowa trails Nebraska 43,351 to 43,450. To help Iowa's cause, head on over to the school's Facebook Page.