OT: 2016 B1G Football Season Openers: IU and Minnesota/Open Thread

Submitted by Steves_Wolverines on

Indiana @ FIU 7:30 PM ET on ESPNU and WatchESPN

Two B1G teams start their season tonight. Indiana starts the night off with the 2nd leg of their home/home with FIU. The Hoosiers beat FIU 36-22 last season in Bloomington. Tonight, they start their season in Miami. I don't know anything about FIU, other than seeing that they finished 5-7 last year, and we'll get another chance to see them against a B1G team, as they host Maryland next week. We are familiar with Team Chaos. They will likely score a lot of points. They will likely give up a lot of points. Should be a fun game to watch if you like high scoring affairs.

Oregon St @ Minnesota 9:00 PM ET on BTN

The headline for this game is future 1st rounder Mitch Leidner. Last season, Minnesota finished 6-7, beating the bad teams and losing to the good teams. This year, they are an upset darling to compete as B1G West Champs. They've got some good pieces, and I do think they'll actually beat one of the good teams this year (Wisconsin perhaps?). As for Oregon State, well, they were terrible last season. They finished 2-10. Maybe they'll be better this year? 

Predictions

Indiana 48 - FIU 27

Minnesota 31 - Oregon State 17

 

EDIT: I rushed this in the hopes of having a positive post to cover up all the calamities we've seen today. 

Teams of interest (to college football fans) also starting their seasons today:

#19 Louisville vs. Charlotte 7:00 pm EST on ACCN
#9 Tennessee vs. Appalachian St. 7:30 PM EST on SECN
South Carolina vs. Vanderbilt 8:00 PM EST on ESPN
(DII) GVSU vs. Tiffin 7:00 PM on ESPN3 and WatchESPN (GVSU is my alma mater)

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LKLIII

September 1st, 2016 at 11:58 PM ^

If anybody wanted proof that the transitive property in football doesn't work, this game is it. We obliterated Oregon State last year and barely hung on to beat Minnesota.



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DK81

September 2nd, 2016 at 12:20 AM ^

I love the aggressive decision to go for the win and the 2 point conversion. I hate the play call. You are running it down osu's throat. Go run pass option there. Unless you are Michigan and have an amazing defense, you should try to end it with the two point conversion.



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reshp1

September 2nd, 2016 at 12:28 AM ^

I dunno what they expect defensive players to do. The defender is trying to get Liedner down as fast as possible to preserve clock and a split second before he gets tackled he takes a knee and the defender is supposed to pull off instantly? Comn

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Muttley

September 2nd, 2016 at 12:49 AM ^

They had 60 seconds to kill with 4 plays, 3 huddles between plays versus Oregon State's 2 timeouts.  So between 3rd & 4th down, Minny could run 40 seconds off the clock, meaning they had to average 20/4 = 5 seconds per live play time to kill the clock.  They had run off 13 in two plays, three seconds ahead of schedule.  And on 4th down, the QB can just chuck a bomb out-of-bounds to kill a couple of seconds.

Against MSU last year, Michigan had to kill 107 seconds with with 4 plays, 3 huddles between plays versus the Spartan's lone timeout.  So we had to kill 27 seconds in 4 live plays, or an average of 7 seconds per play.  I think that could have been easily accomplished with Peppers running around in the backfield.

Further, I think some team will develop a scrum that places more players around the QB and just rumbles sideways.  I think you could waste 10 or more seconds, especially the first time the defense saw it and was trying to get at your ball carrier, say, 4 on 8.

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