USA Today oddsmaker views Michigan State, Michigan, even in Big Ten football title race

Submitted by Cold War on

Michigan State and Michigan have equal odds of winning the Big Ten football conference this season, according to national oddsmaker Danny Sheridan.

Neither, however, have as good of odds as Ohio State University.

Sheridan put out a tweet from his Twitter account, @DannySheridan1, that states OSU (Ohio State) has 1:1 odds; "MSU & UM 3:1.''

 http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2013/05/usa_today_oddsmaker_views_mich.html

DISCUSS Man

May 27th, 2013 at 10:25 PM ^

If I see one more thread involving these pukes....

That's BS anyways. They lost 3 key players. Michigan is going to be a better offensive team this year. They will win the division, and most likely will fulfill Delany's wet dream of two straight weeks of Michigan-ohio, thus, ruining The Game game if the championship matchup is already known going into The Game.

The more and more threads obsessing over rival teams there are, the more of a VB Scare is in my mind. VB Scare = mgoblog going to a vbulletin format with a special subforum about rivalz OSwho and Spartina. That is my second biggest fear in life.

The first is the brass kitchen scene from Jurassic Park. 

GoBlueInNYC

May 27th, 2013 at 10:37 PM ^

Fair enough. Knee-jerk reaction to seeing stupid nicknames.

All the same, this board needs to keep its angst in check some times. Yeah, people post way too many threads about MSU. But a national publication put odds on who's winning the conference, and ranks Michigan the same as our in-state rival. It's not that crazy a topic for the dog days of the off season.

MidnightBlue

May 28th, 2013 at 9:43 AM ^

My initial reaction to even odds with MSU parallels yours...  though there is alot of newness with Gardner, and uncertainties are reflected in the odds....  granted their D is great, but they lost Bell and may have a new QB,  and Gardner I think isnt being properly accounted for.. I wouldve bet a 3, 2, 1 to one odds  MSU, Mich, OSU.

But I digress..my goodness, we must win in EL this year...

phork

May 28th, 2013 at 10:39 AM ^

But didn't you guys lose Denard?  Ryan is hurt and Kovacs is gone.  Your WR corp, at first glance, does not look intimidating.  Your RB situation is not exactly top notch.  Gardener and Funchess lit it up against the perennial tire fires of the BIG.

As far as VB is concerned, I think it is a far superior message board format.  Multiple autoquotes, don't lose all posts previoulsy marked NEW when you reply to one comment.  But to each their own.

MidnightBlue

May 28th, 2013 at 11:57 AM ^

Gallon is gonna finish All Big-Ten....

Gardner is a gamer and I prefer him over Denard....

Green and Smith are in the fold at RB...

Its hard to imagine, I know, but the old Michigan is almost back, and about to bring the pain again.

 

phork

May 28th, 2013 at 4:27 PM ^

While the secondary part is legit (we moved a RB to CB and turns out he is pretty good), we still had Eifert and TJ Jones, Theo Riddick etc. When you have a dominant D Line, you can hide the secondary.

This year will be the year where the drop off occurs.

ThadMattasagoblin

May 27th, 2013 at 10:24 PM ^

It's funny how every football preview talks about how many players they return on offense.  We already went through this during the RR era.  It doesn't matter who you return if they suck.

mGrowOld

May 27th, 2013 at 10:28 PM ^

Hey mods.....what time am I suppose to post something about Michigan State again?  I forgot which slot I was assaigned to and God knows we want.....no we NEED to have a post about MSU up on the board at all times.

artds

May 27th, 2013 at 10:32 PM ^

Anyone who pays close attention to this conference and these two teams in particular knows 9 wins is the floor for Michigan this year, 10-11 is likely, and 12 is possible. Michigan State, on the other hand, will be lucky to put together a repeat of last year (7 wins) with the talent they just lost and their sketchy offense breaking in a new O-coordinator.

Ali G Bomaye

May 28th, 2013 at 11:19 AM ^

I don't think that "breaking in a new O-coordinator" should be considered a weakness for MSU.  Rather, that's one of the best things going for them this year.  It's like they just got rid of the GERG of offense - even if the new guy isn't great, he should still be an improvement.

GoBlueInNYC

May 27th, 2013 at 10:33 PM ^

To be fair to the OP, it's not like this was some random topic about MSU, such as a former QB writing a book. It was a national publication discussing Michigan's odds of winning the conference.

I think it speaks to the work Michigan still has to do to repair its reputation. Personally, I think this guy has MSU overrated, but seems fair for UM.

Perkis-Size Me

May 27th, 2013 at 10:37 PM ^

I don't really see how MSU is viewed as a legitimate contender, judging by what we've seen from them. Their offense was putrid even on a good day, and the only guys from the offense worth anything (Bell and Sims) are gone. Couple that with learning a new offense, one that is arguably more boring and conservative than the one they used to have, and I fail to see a recipe for immediate success.



A good defense doesn't help you much if your team can't score.

MidnightBlue

May 28th, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^

Well their defense is stellar... and am sorry to say that......  defense wins championships....  they should be considered....  we gotta beat them in EL this year....  though losing Bell and possibly going to Cook, could send them off the cliff early...because it'll happen when Narduzzi leaves.

BlockM

May 27th, 2013 at 10:46 PM ^

Ugh. Can we just discuss football without talking about what some guy at USA Today has to say? Sports projections are just absolutely worthless. There's an easy way to figure out what happens: wait and watch the games.

BlockM

May 28th, 2013 at 6:48 AM ^

Talking about who's going to do what, how some players might be developing, and getting an idea of what our opponents may look like is fine, I just hate predictions. I hate them almost as much as listening to people who get really worked up about predictions. Why do we care at all if some random guy says that MSU and Michigan are equal odds to win a B1G title?

Wisconsin Wolverine

May 28th, 2013 at 8:44 AM ^

While I agree with you - and actually think it's a really interesting psychological phenomenon that we have this obsession with guessing the future - I've had to accept that predictions are like 75% of what sports media does when their sport isn't presently happening. I know, I know ... "What good is predicting things anyway? All that matters is the true outcome." Yeah, but ... you try and stop them. It's like telling someone to stop blinking. If you think about your sport at all, it's natural to build hypothetical scenarios. Next you're weighing the relative likelihoods of them actually happening. And that finally leads to predictions. I think that NOT doing so takes a measured degree of conscious restraint.

there_in_2005

May 27th, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^

does anyone else read these types of threads and have a moment of self-reflection to consider whether maybe just maybe WE are the delusional ones? i do that and then try to look at things objectively and i keep wondering how this year's team is not better than last year's team in basically every facet save the SAM and maybe (?) safety.

GoBlueInNYC

May 27th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^

I think the same thing a lot. People around here get pretty worked up when they think Michigan is being slighted and have pretty outsized expectations.

But consider last year's team went 8-5, lost Jake Ryan and Jordan Kovacs from the D, and has an extremely inexperienced interior O-Line paired with a running game that includes a RB coming back from injury and a hyped but unproved true freshman. There will definitely be improvements in some areas, but it's also possible they'll continue to struggle or possibly regress in others. I think they'll be better, but it's not a given that they'll will the division and are assured double digit wins.

 

Ali G Bomaye

May 28th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^

I think one of the things we're counting on is that college players tend to improve significantly from year to year.  Sure, we lost Ryan, Kovacs, and Denard, but we didn't lose many other significant contributors, which means that almost everybody else on the team should be improved.  In addition, we have several important additions to the starting lineup: Countess, Gardner (who is almost certainly a better fit for our offense than Denard was), and possibly Derrick Green.

Our interior OL is inexperienced, but our interior OL last year wasn't that great, and we will have highly touted guys who fit the scheme starting this year, so it shouldn't be much of a downgrade (if any).  Plus, we have the best pair of tackles in the country, so the OL should be fine.

Easy Day

May 27th, 2013 at 10:52 PM ^

These were his 2012 odds:



Danny Sheridan @DannySheridan1

Big 10 Title odds: OSU/Mich 2:1, Neb 3:1, UW 4:1, MSU 8:1, PSU 12:1, Iowa 15:1, Illinois 25:1, NW 50:1, Purdue 100: Indiana 500:1, Minn (a lot)



So yeah.  Apparently, in his mind, the only thing holding them back last year were Bell and Sims.  Good luck with that.

Bill in Birmingham

May 27th, 2013 at 11:21 PM ^

I cannot tell you how little I care about anything Danny Sheridan thinks about anything. He frequently provides his "expert" analysis on the Finebaum show, a great forum for his level of insight.

allezbleu

May 27th, 2013 at 11:54 PM ^

they are not odds. Odds from Vegas are done by many, many experts and close-up statistical analysis.

These "odds" are done by some know-nothing SI writer who makes estimations based on returning starters and his big-picture view of college football. The guy probably watches 2 or 3 Michigan or MSU games a year. These guys should stick to their "power rankings" or puff pieces aimed at part-time college football fans.

Personally, my expectations are 10+ wins and a rematch of The Game in Indianapolis. The defense should be just as good as last year and a full season of the Borges/Gardner offense should make for a better season. And even if we do take a step back from last season - we should have a better record because of our schedule.

ThadMattasagoblin

May 28th, 2013 at 12:08 AM ^

Our schedule is a lot easier this year comapred to 2012 so if we don't progress at all we should still be 9-3 or 10-2 just based off of not playing Bama and playing all of the teams that we lost to at home.  While we lose guys like Jake ryan and Jordan Kovacs, guys like Joe Bolden, Jarrod Wilson, and James Ross should be much better since they have a year of experience under their belt and aren't freshmen playing valuable minutes.                                                                                      

Logan88

May 28th, 2013 at 8:08 AM ^

Perhaps it's just my natural pessimism kicking in but I am having a hard time believing the talk about Ryan being back by October. Even if he does manage to get back on the field on that time schedule, I wonder how effective he would be as he would probably be pretty rusty.

As far as MSU's chances, I think they have a better shot at winning the division than some people here are giving them. They have the easiest conference schedule of anyone in the Legends division as their crossover games are Indiana, Purdue and Illinois. Add in a home game against Minnesota and they have four "auto-wins" right there. I think they have a decent shot at a 6-2 conference record and that might be good enough for them to win the division. They have no chance of winning the B1G championship game against OSU, however.

funkywolve

May 28th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^

Agree.  They catch what appears to be a huge break with their crossover games this year.  On top of it, their bye weeks are well placed - before the Big Ten opener at Iowa and before they go to Lincoln.

On paper, their 3 toughest games in conference are Michigan, at Nebraska and at NU.  They also get those 3 games in the second half of the big ten schedule so they'll have a number of games under their belt with the new OC.

 

If they can win their crossover games, Minnesota and at Iowa, they'll probably be in the thick of the division race.