Vegas win totals: Michigan 9
Las Vegas bookmakers officially set the bar for win totals for each team, and surprisingly only 2 teams will have 10 or more wins.. Those being Alabama (10.5) and Ohio St (10).
They have Michigan pegged in at 9.
Other notable B1G teams:
Wisconsin (9.5)
Penn St. (9.5)
Michigan St. (6.5)
Honestly surprised at the predictions for PSU and Wisconsin.
I'd say that Wisconsin is too low. They don't have to play PSU or OSU this year. Their only tough game is against us (and hopefully again in the B1G championship).
Wisconsin has very close to the easiest schedule in the conference.
We are the only top team from the East they draw this year, and they get us at home (their other crossovers are Maryland at home and at Indiana). Additionally, BYU isn't a terribly challenging non-conference foe (although it is a true road game).
Finally, the Badgers get two of the other top three predicted teams in the West at home (Iowa and Northwestern).
Their only conference road trips to average or better teams are Nebraska and Minnesota, the two schools the Badgers have absolutely dominated lately. Wisconsin has not lost to Minnesota since 2003 and is 5-1 vs. the Huskers since they joined the conference.
I wouldn't be surprised if they win 10, or even 11, but lose in Indianapolis.
Last year it was tough, but they also had the easiest conference schedule in both 2014 and 2015 as well. (Their two East crossovers, BOTH of those years, were Maryland and Rutgers).
You are absolutely correct about the conference schedule, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Tons of respect to UW though. Instead of just taking the easy schedule and running with it (cough 2015 Iowa), they scheduled LSU in 2014 and Alabama in 2015 OOC. Iowa on the other hand played Illinois State and North Texas on their cupcake 2015 schedule.
to the the conference title game.
They lost two of those games you listed and finished fourth in the big ten but because divisions are stupid, they got to play in the title game. I'm not sure there is a team that has been rewarded more for things that they didn't earn in the past few years than Wisconsin.
Also, did you really just include the awful 3-9 MSU team from last year in listing tough games to start to their season last year? Really? LSU wasn't that good either. So meh.
Wisconsin does go to BYU early in the year, but otherwise their toughest road test is probably to Nebraska and that's it. Maybe Fleck keeps Minny feisty to end the year. But if they play typical Wisconsin football, they 6 easy wins on this schedule (Utah St., FAU, Purdue, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana), and then they just have to squeeze 4 wins out of NW, @Neb, @BYU, Iowa, UM, @Minny. And I see a pretty easy path to 4 or 5 wins from that group.
PSU I don't know. They have a rough stretch of UM, @OSU, @MSU, and maybe @Iowa gives them trouble, but beyond that they have an easy schedule. Pitt seems pretty mediocre, honestly, with a defense with massive holes and an offense having to replace some key players from last year. I could absolutely see PSU lose 3 games, but 9.5 seems a reasonable enough win total.
Wisconsin has a favorable schedule this year. They don't play OSU or PSU and get Michigan at home. Only tough non-conference game is at BYU. They do play at Nebraska and at Minnesota but I would not be shocked to see them win 10.
Sure wish they would realign the divisions, so Wisconsin quits making it to the championship. That schedule is a joke and so is the west. The two best teams in the big ten are Michigan and osu and then Penn state. If msu could quit raping they would give teams like wisconsin a fit also going forward. Making divisions by geography is just plain stupid and this scenario will play out year after year after year. The first two teams to start the making of divisions should have been Michigan and osu just like they did with the leaders and legends. However it worked out, last year you had the third and fourth best team in the championship. Osu got a punt blocked and returned and we choked with turnovers and ref help. Realign the divisions and this won't happen. It is going to get worse going forward. I know they wont realign but lets just see how many times the west wins the championship. Of couse the proof is in the pudding and Michigan wins eleven games this year along with osu. Penn state losses at least three and Franklin is not named a top five coach like I saw today.
Don't care if our division is tougher, I want to be in the same division as Ohio State. Any issue with being in the tougher division is more than outweighed by the possibility of playing them two weeks in a row and losing the significance of The Game.
Agree.. if there were to be any realignment, and there won't be, Michigan and Ohio State HAVE to be in the same division, period. Aside from 2006, I have no interest in seeing an OSU rematch.
an OSU rematch on a neutral field last year to determine who really should have gone to the playoff? If you wanted one in 2006, you had to want one last year too.
Your larger point does remain though. If a rematch was a possibility, The Game wouldn't have meant as much. If both teams come in with title game berths already clinched, it would take away from the significance of the game.
The only way to really have fair title game representation is to get rid of divisions altogether. I would love that for a lot of reasons, high on the list being that we'd get more games against current west teams and fewer with Rutgers and Maryland and Indiana.
But it would lead to the occasional year in which M and OSU have clinched ahead of The Game. The only answer answer there would be to live with it, or move the game up. Not sure either of those options are worth getting fair title game participants. Tough one.
Really after I thought about it I wish there was no championship game. No divisions. Just play the schedule out the way they used to. The championship means absolutely nothing anyways as we saw this year. Yea Penn state we know you beat osu and won the big ten championship and even though osu's win over Michigan was a little bit more than sketchy, we would like them to go to the playoffs for no good reason. I do not want to watch another 63-0 championship game. That is not the one playing the two. That is a joke. If there were more crossover games the big ten winner would be more legit and so would the standings. Play an extra game to make things equal and gain back the revenue.
63-0 in a championship game are you kidding me. That is what you call validation.
Not so sure about that.
Road games at Iowa and Ohio State are both very tough, as we all know from last year. They also have some timing issues, with Michigan and OSU in back to back weeks, directly followed by a "trap" type road game against the Spartans in East Lansing.
Their Big Ten schedule is actually probably harder than ours. @Iowa and @Wisconsin cancel each other out. I'd much rather have Minnesota/Purdue as our other two West teams than Nebraska/Northwestern. Yes, they get us at home, but they have to go to both Columbus and East Lansing.
Our nonconference schedule probably makes our overall schedules equal, but Florida really isn't that much better than Pitt, although the home vs neutral thing makes a difference.
Wisconsin's QB situation is also a mess and they also are replacing a few defensive draft picks. UW also is replacing its defensive coordinator (again).
I agree that Wisconsin will probably be slightly better (small difference), but given Michigan's never-ending struggles against the Hawkeyes, I'm happy we're playing the Badgers.
You are wrong about MSU. Ohio State was only able to beat MSU by one point last year in Spartan Stadium, and we only mustered a single digit win as well. Yes, the Spartans may be trash, but they are tough against top tier teams at home. Dantonio is obviously a much better coach than field goal Franklin too.
Playing UM, @OSU, @MSU in three consecutive weeks is brutal no matter how you cut it. On the other hand, Michigan has a very nicely spaced schedule (especially for a young team; two of our three hardest games are at the end and the other tough game, @PSU, is surrounded by a bunch of easy games).
Holy god. What sort of Buckeye trash excuse is that?! You really hate MSU that much that you'll sell out to an inane OSU talking point?
The weather was really brutual indoors in Arizona on New Year's Eve last year!
last year overrides their full body, terrible body of work last year. It's one game. Plus, OSU wasn't that good towards the end of last year. They lost to PSU, struggled with NW, got destroyed by us for three quarters at home but were kept in the game by our QB, and then did get destroyed by Clemson.
Sparty wasn't tough against Wisconsin or us at home last year. They were man-handled by both teams. So no, it was a one game abberation, which happens in college football. They were not good at football last year in any way, shape or form.
The definition of a trap game is against a team that isn't good and that the favorite should be expected to beat, but the circumstances around the game lead to the potential for an upset.
I don't understand why some people on here freak out if you suggest that it might be reasonable to expect MSU to do better than 0-12.
that "they are tough against top tier teams at home", which like, the were in 2015 and a few years before that. They certainly weren't last year in 2 out of 3 tries. So the point is that was a fluke against OSU last year, not evidence that they were likely to play tough against top tier teams.
Are they capable of having another abberation/fluke against PSU next year? Absolutely. I'm not even necessarily arguing that it's not a trap game. It is a road conference game coming off two tough games, so in that sense, yes, it is a trap. In the way that our game at IU could be a "trap". But only because of the road and timing aspects. Not so much the opponent.
I am arguing that it's not a given anymore, far from it, that MSU is tough at home. And with the way they're going, they're very likely not to be tough at home against top tier teams.
You're putting too much weight on what they did from 2010-2015 or so, rather than what their team could be this coming year.
Won't be too hard. The dude was the face of medicore quarterbacking.
The QB in Iowa's system could be a parking meter, it doesn't matter much.
In one of the worst historic QB drafts since the NFL has been around. And is even being the 6th quarterback taken something to gloat about? How many QBS are drafted?
The dude's historic QB Rating is 129.8.
He's an average QB.
Have dealt with Kirk Ferentz, and they all have been historically average. That's why the Iowa QBs are relatively inconsequential with how they perform.
Iowa is defense and running. That's it. Losing Beathard just doesn't move the needle, sorry. At his best, in their 12-0 season, he was 2nd team.
Iowa should be 3-0 going into that game (although they have more than their fair share of inexplicable losses to the Cyclones over the years). If Iowa is 3-0, that will be a fired-up atmosphere in Iowa City. Very tough for a road team.
If PSU wins that game, they have momentum. Validated themselves as a legit contender to repeat in the B1G. 7-0 record before going to Columbus is hardly unreasonable at that point.
If PSU loses that game, they're off to a 0-1 start and already in a tough spot as regards the B1G East race. Could see a loss at Northwestern 2 weeks later. Which could into a 4-4 record after the OSU game.
Momentum and home-field means SO much in college football. Time will tell.
I agree. If penn state loses to Iowa they are in trouble. They will beat Indiana at home, but then we will see just how good they are. The next four teams are better than Iowa. Beating Iowa does'nt meen anything. If they beat northwestern and Michigan and are undefeated going into columbus then they are validated. I have them with two losses and getting run over in columbus. If they win ten or more I will be impressed and have to give them there due. What happens if Barkley or Mcsorely get dinged?. A lot of expectations in Happy valley and columbus. This is just going to be a fun year.
sentences talking about PSU being the defending B1G champ are actually true. What a joke of a conference title winner they were last year. Got DESTROYED by us, beat OSU in an incredibly fluky 4th qtr (and were fortunate enough to get them at home), and literally did not have another difficult conference game on the schedule.
And then, got to play the 4th place team in the conference in the title game. smh.
Obviously you're either unwilling or unable to look at the details of a record.
That Pitt team beat the National Champion Clemson Tigers, in Death Valley no less, as well as an ultimately Big Ten Champion Penn State squad. Additionally, 4 of their 5 losses were by a touchdown or less.
The Florida team was demolished by every elite team it played (Alabama, Florida State, even got blown out by Arkansas). SEC East titles mean absolutely nothing recently. You do realize the ACC had the best bowl record of the major conferences, by far, and won the national championship last year, right?
And that Iowa team was able to beat Michigan, unlike Wisconsin. Wisconsin and Iowa also have played each other very close recently, including last year.
They will have a tough time in Iowa and I think they will lose to northwestern. They then have us, osu and they go to sparty. Wonder if I will be voting for them to beat osu. It is giving me a headache thinking about that one. They are acting like world beaters and it is getting old. If Penn state wins the east I will tip my hat, but I think they are going to be brought back to reality with a quickness.
Michigan - 9, Wisc - 9, PSU - 8, MSU - 5
I remember my first double. It was great! :)
UM will win at least 10 games.
Penn. St. hype is funny.
I hate PSU, but they return of ton of players from a team that clearly found its stride offensively after we curb stomped them. And mark of the true champion or not (it isn't) they did win the Big Ten title game... so like it or not their hype is 'warranted' given how much they return, especially at QB/RB. I could see them wininng 10 games again. But it won't last, Joe Moorhead will get a HC gig somewhere and James "Brady Hoke" Franklin will send that program back to 7/8 win seasons with regularity.
I'm not so sure about Michigan though, the schedule sets up nicely and it is possible Frey and Drevno turn out an average OL. Yes, both seasons for Harbaugh were 10-3, but he took them from 9-3 to 10-2 in the regular seasons so it wouldn't surprise to see them hit 10/11 wins. He's certainly not expecting them to regress. Either way, it'll be nice to someday soon count on the OL as a strength instead of a weakness/question mark.
Seeing as only wins in the regular season count on these bets (conference championships & bowl games do not) I'd bet heavy on a MSU/PSU under bet. That means they would have to go 10-2 & 7-5 respectfully or better for that parlay not to pay.