Winning games on the road is never easy, especially inside the conference. Winning games on the road on back-to-back Saturdays has really been a challenge for the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2010.

Sometimes scheduling doesn’t allow the opportunity, but still, the Hawkeyes have had plenty of chances to win back-to-back road games this decade. They’ve done it exactly once, beating Minnesota and Purdue on the road on consecutive weekends in 2016.

And that’s it.

They get another chance Saturday when they travel to Indiana to play the Hoosiers (Noon ET; TV: ESPN2). The Hawkeyes came off their bye week and won at Minnesota 48-31 last week, raising their record to 4-1 and keeping their nose in the hunt in the Big Ten West race. Winning Saturday at Indiana really matters, and the Hawkeyes are 5-point favorites.

Sounds easy enough, but history says otherwise. The Hawkeyes only won one conference game last year, and in these back-to-back situations since 2010, they’ve succeeded only once in seven tries.

And Indiana is no pushover, despite the 5-point line, and despite the history of the rivalry, which has been dominated by Iowa. The Hawkeyes have won two in a row, and six of the last seven.

Indiana’s offense is very good, averaging 27.8 points and 411.2 yards per game. Indiana quarterback Peyton Ramsey has completed 66.8 percent of his passes and has 1,361 yards and 11 touchdowns. Last week, he passed for a career-high 322 yards and three touchdowns against Ohio State.

Iowa’s defense has been very good this year, but injuries are starting to pile up and the Hawkeyes might be susceptible on Saturday. True freshman defensive backs Julius Brents and Riley Moss have been forced into the starting lineup, and they acquitted themselves well Saturday at Minnesota, but they weren’t perfect.

There are issues at linebacker as well. Middle linebacker Jack Hockaday got banged up Saturday and then his backup, Amani Jones, was flagged for targeting in the second half, which means he’ll miss the first half of Saturday’s game at Indiana. Junior Kristian Welch will have to slide into the middle from the outside, at least for now. That’s a lot of moving pieces at a critical position group.

There might be some injury concerns on the offensive side of the ball as well. Starting running back Ivory Kelly-Martin and standout tight end Noah Fant both left Saturday’s game with injuries. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said he figures both will be ready to go for Indiana, but we’ll see how effective they are. We’ll know more as the week progresses.

But all of that — plus all that history — makes it seem like Saturday’s game with Indiana might be a real nail-biter.

Can the Hawkeyes buck the trend? It’s going to be interesting to see.