Herbstreit on Mike and Mike: Picks Purdue to win the Big Ten

Submitted by rmic2 on

I listened to Herbstreit on ESPN Radio today on Mike and Mike. He was on for ten minutes, mainly talking about the big games of the weekend (Texas/WVU, USC/Georgia, ND/Miami, LSU/Florida). He then briefly said his two upsets of the weekend are Northwestern over PSU and Purdue over Michigan. He said Purdue was the best team in the Big Ten this year, and are now his pick to go to the Rose Bowl.

justingoblue

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:25 PM ^

The Big Ten's Rose Bowl chances don't look great even if you believe that Nebraska and Michigan haven't played up to their potential (and that one will get their act together). Purdue facing Stanford or USC would be brutal, and I'm not sure anyone would watch more than a quarter of Oregon/Purdue.

Edit: I guess the game would get plenty of viewers up in Eugene.

MIMark

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:33 PM ^

Purdue and Oregon played a home and home in 2008/09.  At Purdue in 2008, Oregon won in multiple overtimes.  At Oregon in 2009, Oregon won on the final play.  Purdue didn't go to a bowl game either year, while Oregon in 2008 demolished OK State in the Holiday Bowl and won the Pac 10 and went to the Rose Bowl in 2009.  There's no reason to think an Oregon / Purdue mathcup this year wouldn't be another excellent matchup since Purdue is significantly better this year.

justingoblue

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:40 PM ^

I watched all of Oregon/Arizon, most of Purdue/ND and was flipping back and forth while Purdue played Marshall. I just don't think it looks close, at all. I'm not saying I'm an expert on either team (like I said, I've only seen those few games), just that Oregon's offense looks like it will score a lot of points against anyone, and their defense looks like it could be improved as well.

State Street

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:27 PM ^

Still can't comprehend these divisional alignments.  The Leaders has 3 championship-eligible teams (c'mon, IU doesn't count).  The Legends has 6, including 3 of the best teams.

I know it's a rule that you need two have two divisions to have a conference championship game, but why don't they have all 12 teams in a single table style format, the top two going to the championship game? 

State Street

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:34 PM ^

It would make so much more sense to just dissolve the rule and have every conference go to a 12 or 14 team table.  This would avoid the "but they didn't win the conference championship" argument because, what a novel idea, the best two teams would be playing the conference championship game (pending tiebreaker choices).

Needs

October 4th, 2012 at 10:24 AM ^

With the 8 game schedule, however, you'd get all kinds of ties between teams that hadn't played each other, or who had only played some of the teams they were tied with. Good luck developing a rational set of rules for who goes to the championship game. At least this system creates clear winners of the divisions, even if the divisions are horribly misaligned.

I.Heart.Denard

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:35 PM ^

That purd(haha)iction is comical. Purdue would be the fifth or sixth best team in the conference WITH their starting qb, but he tore his ACL. This pick makes no sense to me

Nothsa

October 3rd, 2012 at 7:13 PM ^

A couple things...

1. By this point their offense must gameplan around a serious knee injury to a skill player each week. In fact the guy might play even with his injury.

2. Personally I agree with you about Purdue's standing in the conference, but... see next point!

2. The B10 is pretty down, and Purdue only has one decent eligible team in their division, if you think Wisconsin is even decent. I'd put their chances at reaching the conference title game at, shoot, 39.75%, maybe better than that. That's better odds than I'd give any of Michigan, Nebraska, or MSU for reaching the game from the "We aren't quite as bad as the other division" division - they are all lurking around 25%, and those could drop if Iowa shows a little more life. And you have to make the title game to play for the title. So I don't think Herbs is that out to lunch here.

I.Heart.Denard

October 3rd, 2012 at 7:57 PM ^

After looking at their schedule and thinking about it a bit more I can actually understand where Herb is getting this from. The only two games left on their schedule that I see them losing are us and Wisconsin. After that their schedule looks pretty easy. That would put them at nine losses and depending on what Wisconsin does they could be in the championship game and anything can happen there. Purdue also payed @ Notre Dame and only lost 20-17, which is very interesting because if they manage to beat us or Wisconsin, Purdue could be a two loss team. Wonder when the last time that happened was. 

Needs

October 4th, 2012 at 10:48 AM ^

Penn State also rolled Illinois last week, but Illinois is just bad. This will be the first game since the Ohio game that Penn State's shaky secondary gets tested.

jsquigg

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:38 PM ^

That's one of the worst predictions I've ever heard.  Hope he backs it up on Gameday so I can watch him back track the next week.  He'd probably pick Ohio if they were eligible.  If Michigan loses on Saturday I'm moving to Bolivia and becoming a monk.

orobs

October 3rd, 2012 at 5:38 PM ^

What exactly makes it such a terrible prediction?

 

If you take your homer glasses off, they looked WAY better against our one mutual opponent (ND), and had a close game against Marshall (which i'd put on par with our game against Air Force).

 

You may not like it, but Herbstreit is a neutral observer, and knows a hell of a lot more about college football than we do

justingoblue

October 3rd, 2012 at 5:58 PM ^

We had the better completion percentage and YPA passing, more yards and more YPC rushing, more first downs, more total yards and more YPP.

We held ND's offense to less points, first downs, yards passing (by a factor of two), and forced more turnovers (two INT's for us, none for Purdue).

We lost by more points, and you can't discount six turnovers, but I'm not sure it's fair to say they played way better than we did. You could make an argument that we had the better game, to be honest.

Crable2thaGrave

October 3rd, 2012 at 4:41 PM ^

Michigan will win the big ten. everyone wants to write michigan off because they lost 13-6 @ notre dame with six turnovers! State has no offense, wisconsin is a mess, and as long as taylor martinez is nebraskas quarterback they will always be an underdog IMO

Tater

October 4th, 2012 at 1:31 AM ^

I still think Michigan will win the Big Ten.  If they had scheduled a tomato can instead of Alabama, they would be 3-1.  We could reframe the ND loss to a positive instead of a negative by saying that a top ten team had to get six turnovers to win by a touchdown and "ruin a possible undefeated season."  

It's all perception, and I think the non-conference part of the schedule gave the coaching staff a great opportunity to fire this team up for the Big Ten portion of the schedule.  Hoke and Co. will be able to play the "no respect" card for nearly every game the rest of the year.  

It might not help, but it certainly can't hurt.