Here are the spreads on the Big Ten games this week:
Wisconsin 2.5 over Illinois O/U 42.5
Iowa 4.5 over Minnesota O/U 32.5
Ohio State 4.5 over Penn State O/U 47
Rutgers 5 over Indiana O/U 42.5
Nebraska 12.5 over Northwestern O/U 44
Michigan 24.5 over MSU O/U 48
Io_a vs. Wisconsin the O/U was 32.5 and the result was 21. I can’t imagine Io_a scoring above 17 nor allowing Minnesota to score above 14.
Our spread seems high given Nebraska isn’t very good and our only common opponent we beat and they lost to.
I thought there was no way Maryland wouldn’t dominate Illinois, but I was wrong so maybe I know nothing about college football.
I think turnovers will be the key stat this week, Nebraska has been both fumble and interception prone.
With their losses at WR and RB, they’re offense is relying on less experienced talent. Grant has experience at RB but has been prone to fumbles. They’ve been working on how he holds the ball when running to try to make it harder for the defense to punch it out, but it’s hard to change what you’ve been doing for years. Their defensive secondary is pretty good, the DL and linebackers are a bit more iffy, ranging from very good to awful within the game. The 3-3-5 defense seems to be working fairly well, though. Their OL is also questionable.
If Sims is fully recovered from a high ankle sprain, will he start over Haarberg? I think Sims has a somewhat higher potential but also a higher risk for mistakes.
I think Nebraska let Minnesota beat them like Minnesota let Northwestern beat them.
Illinois is a hard team to predict, they didn’t look that great against Nebraska but they looked really good against Maryland.
Nebraska just announced that Haarberg will start at QB, and LB Luke Reimer will be back after missing the Michigan and Illinois games.