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Topic: ELA October 8 Breakdown
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ELA · « **on:** October 05, 2022, 10:24:37 AM »

Nebraska Cornhuskers (1-1, 2-3) at Rutgers Scarlet Knights (0-2, 3-2)

(Fri) 7:00 - Piscataway, NJ - FS1

As I mentioned last week, this is where Rutgers has to solidify their bowl chances. They have home games against Nebraska and Indiana, sandwiched around a bye week. The Huskers seemed to get their bearings back, particularly on defense, in the second half of the win over Indiana last week. Now they seek their first...wait for it...two game conference winning streak since 2018. Hell, they haven't even won back to back games against FBS teams since September 2019, when they beat Northern Illinois and Illinois. To do that, they need to get the running game sorted out. Over the past two games, against Oklahoma and Indiana, the Huskers managed just 2.9 ypc. That's against an Indiana defense that let Chase Brown run for 200 yards against them, and an Oklahoma defense that in the two games since, has allowed Kansas State and TCU run for over 600 yards and 9 TDs, on 8.5 ypc. TCU scored 55 points in just 3 quarters last week. Nebraska needed a garbage TD down 49-7 just to get to double digits. Rutgers is 5th in the Big Ten in run defense, even with the Ohio State game last week. Prior to that, they were surrendering under 1.8 ypc, best in the conference by far. This feels like a weird thing to type, but if you can't run on Oklahoma, how can you expect to run on Rutgers? The Rutgers offense hasn't been much better, but even though I have benched Evan Simon nearly every week on here, it seems like the job is his this year. The Rutgers crowd isn't Maryland. Nebraska travels as well as anyone, but Rutgers has a small stadium, that they seem to fill for event games, like a prime time showdown with a helmet school. If what the Huskers defense showed in the second half last week was real, they should be able to shut down the Scarlet Knights. But that's the first they've showed that.

RUTGERS 31, NEBRASKA 21

#4 Michigan Wolverines (2-0, 5-0) at Indiana Hoosiers (1-1, 3-2)

NOON - Bloomington, IN - FOX

Michigan went into a building they've had all sorts of issues in last week, and handled business with ease. The next road trip is a little different. The Hoosiers won at home in 2020, breaking an 11 game Michigan winning streak in the building, dating back to 1987. Prior to that, you have to go back to the 50's. The Indiana win over Illinois seems more and more fluky with each passing week. I think Tom Allen, if he was being honest, is glad that game is behind him. The Hoosiers seem to be fading with each week. Nebraska couldn't stop anyone, particularly on the ground, and the Huskers shut Indiana down, holding them to just 67 rushing yards on under 3 ypc, while nearly doubling their number of sacks (from 4 to 7) on the season. The second half was even worse, with 7 drives, totaling 61 yards, on 2.1 ypp, with three 3 and outs. Indiana needs to jump out quickly. Michigan has had no trouble doing that, scoring on their first drive in both Big Ten wins, taking 7-0 leads before the first commercial. Their problem has been going into cruise control after that. Not that Maryland or Iowa ever REALLY threatened them, but they made things more annoying for themselves than they probably needed to. We wondered if Iowa could much it up enough to be a problem, and they couldn't. Iowa is the ultimate muck team, and is more talented than Indiana, so the Hoosiers need things to get even sloppier, and aren't nearly Hawkeye level at doing it. Connor Bazelak will push the ball down the field, so that's the one thing he might be able to threaten Michigan with that Iowa couldn't. They can't drive on Michigan, but, unlike Iowa, their offense isn't totally reliant it. Problem is without any semblance of a running game, if Indiana can't force Michigan's safeties to come down, those deep routes won't be there either.

MICHIGAN 35, INDIANA 16

Purdue Boilermakers (1-1, 3-2) at Maryland Terrapins (1-1, 4-1)

NOON - College Park, MD - BTN

Purdue finally found a way to close a game, picking up a win in their most important game of the season. Talk about your swing games, with a loss, Purdue would have been struggling to maintain bowl eligibility. But with that win, you could argue they are now favorites in the Big Ten West, picking up a road win over, arguably, their biggest competition. Now while that's a nice start within the division, they already have a home loss against the third ranked team from the East in their first crossover game, and now they face the fourth best team, on the road. A loss here, and they will likely need to retain head to head supremacy over all of their division foes. Oddly, Maryland's best resume booster is a close road loss at Michigan. They beat a pair of cream puffs. After last night, the close win over SMU looks fairly troubling. And of Michigan State's three losses, Maryland was the only team they stayed close with. The narrative that Maryland was all offense seemed to hold last week, after Maryland and Michigan State exchanged touchdowns on the first three drives, and Maryland only forced one punt in the first half. That narrative flipped quickly in the second half. After scoring touchdowns on their first two drives, Maryland only reached the end zone once in their next eight drives. Against a Michigan State defense which hasn't stopped anyone with a pulse, that's concerning. However, the Maryland defense, which was questionable, allowed a serviceable, but not great Michigan State offense, to tally just 72 second half yards, with 62 of them on one drive. If this Maryland defense can just be decent, that's scary. Taulia Tagovailoa continues to develop as a passer. He not only found 10 different receivers last week, but 9 of them had multiple receptions. Even with Rakim Jarrett clearly not at 100%. I think the Purdue secondary is in for a rude awakening. Sean Clifford torched them late in that win. Same with Syracuse. They were solid last week, but with Mohamed Ibrahim out, the Gophers needed Tanner Morgan to do more than he was capable of. The Terps have a balanced attack, which Purdue has been 0-2 against thus far.

MARYLAND 28, PURDUE 21

Wisconsin Badgers (0-2, 2-3) at Northwestern Wildcats (1-1, 1-4)

3:30 - Evanston, IL - BTN

It's tough to say how Wisconsin comes out. It's clear the locker room was not united behind the decision to fire their coach. But this may have been the right time to do it, if that was going to happen anyway. From a schematic point, doing it going into a bye week is probably ideal. But from a roster management point, going two weeks without a game is likely not ideal. Going on the road, spending the night together in a hotel, but going into a non hostile environment, may help them move beyond. For this struggling defense, the Northwestern offense is exactly what they need. The Badgers are dead last in ppg in conference games, and #13 in run defense and pass efficiency defense. But Northwestern's offense is absolutely dreadful. They essentially had a good quarter against a horrible Nebraska defense, and that's it. But how has Northwestern won 4 of the last 8 against an always better Wisconsin team? The Wildcats are +13 in turnover margin in those 8 games. And ball security is not exactly the strength of this version of Bucky, with 3 turnovers each in their losses to Washington State and Illinois. To make it 5 of 9, those patterns are going to have to repeat. This Wildcat offense is so aggressively bad that it I'm not even sure that's enough. Penn State turned the ball over 5 times last week, and Northwestern turned those 5 turnovers into exactly zero points. Wisconsin is going to need to get some run game going to alleviate some of the pressure on Graham Mertz, who just is who he is at this point. Penn State's improved run game last week forced it, running the ball 58 times, but for just 3.8 ypc, and just one run longer than ten yards (19). This won't be fun to watch, but even against a struggling Wisconsin defense, I just don't see how Northwestern generates anything offensively.

WISCONSIN 31, NORTHWESTERN 19

#3 Ohio State Buckeyes (2-0, 5-0) at Michigan State Spartans (0-2, 2-3)

4:00 - East Lansing, MI - ABC

Dantonio was a bit of a thorn in the side of his former employer, winning 3 of 5 from 2011-2015, twice costing Ohio State a shot at a Big Ten and national title, and a handful of other times (2007, 2012, 2016, 2018) keeping the game way closer than it should have been. So far, Mel Tucker has not done that. He's lost his first two games against Ryan Day, by a combined score of 108-19. C.J. Stroud had his worst game of the season last year, with lows in completion percentage, passing yards, and QBR. Nothing gets you right again like facing this Michigan State secondary, allowing their two Big Ten opponents to complete over 80% of their passes. Stroud has stuck it to the team, who for a minute, he was leaning towards committing to, before putting on a show at the Elite 11 camp, and dramatically increasing his recruiting profile. He made his lone 2020 appearance in mop up duty in East Lansing, scoring on a 48 yard run. Last year he was 32-35 for 432 yards and 6 touchdowns. Kenneth Walker tried to give it a go despite being injured in that game, and clearly was not healthy. So maybe that should have been a hint as to exactly what this roster was without him. Michigan State often comes up the biggest in this series when there are zero expectations. When both teams are in contention (2013 and 2015 aside) and the Spartans draw all of Ohio State's attention, things tend do go poorly. But, obviously famously in 1974 and 1998, but several times recently, when Ohio State has reason to overlook Michigan State, they do, and either lose, or let Sparty hang around. The problem here is that passing game is just too damn good, and Michigan State's secondary is just so damn bad. I don't think it will be the bloodbath of the past two seasons, but I also don't see Michigan State being within two scores at any point past the first quarter.

OHIO STATE 38, MICHIGAN STATE 17

BIG TEN GAME OF THE WEEK

Iowa Hawkeyes (1-1, 3-2) at Illinois Fighting Illini (1-1, 4-1)

7:30 - Champaign, IL - BTN

Admittedly it's not a great week, but this game should be sneaky fun. Now don't get me wrong, not fun from an enjoyment standpoint. This is a sickos only watch. But fun in the sense that the winner still feels good about their chances in the West. Particularly Illinois which would already own wins over perennially the two strongest division rivals (Iowa and Wisconsin). It would also make it increasingly likely (particularly if Purdue wins too), that for the second consecutive year we'll get a first time Conference Championship Game representative, with Illinois, Minnesota and Purdue seemingly in the drivers' seat for that West bid. I'm curious to see if Iowa continues to open it up a little bit more. Granted Michigan was already well in control at that point, and why it took being down three scores to get there is beyond anyone but the walking epitome of nepotism, but Spencer Petras actually looked pretty good once Iowa opened up the playbook last week. They should consider looking to that much sooner this week, against an Illinois defense which has been elite against the run. They lead the conference in every run defense category (ypg, ypc, TD), as well as top 5 nationally, and in their two Big Ten games (one of which was Wisconsin, the stats are even more absurd. They have allowed just 17 rushing yards per game, on 0.7 ypc. Iowa's run offense is worst in the conference at 2.8 ypc. They are also last in rushing yards per game. So maybe open it up Brian. Illinois has had no such issues, with Chase Brown leading the nation with 733 yards. Bret Bielema, to nobody's surprise, is leaning heavily on the run game, running the ball 57.5% of the time, behind only Minnesota and Michigan, with Brown also 2nd in the nation in rush attempts. Tommy DeVito isn't asked to do a lot, but he's efficient in what he is asked to do. He's 4th in the Big Ten at 69.9% completions (and two of the three ahead of him have gotten to play Michigan State's secondary), while ranking #2 in touchdowns (behind Stroud) and #2 in fewest interceptions (behind McCarthy). I have Illinois by 8 before, but while writing this up, I sort of wonder if the only reason I have it this close is due to the helmet they are wearing.

ILLINOIS 24, IOWA 16

ELA · « **Reply #1 on:** October 06, 2022, 03:50:01 PM »

Noon games in

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2022, 11:41:34 AM »

This weekend's games by current Power Ranking:

#1 tOSU at #10 MSU
#2 M at #12 IU
#3 PSU is off
#4 UMD vs #5 PU
#6 MN is off
#7 IL vs #8 Iowa
#9 UW at #14 NU
#11 UNL at #13 RU

The two games between contiguous teams should provide some clarity.

Illinois vs Iowa not only involves contiguous teams (#7 and #8) but also involves two of the six teams currently tied for the B1G-W lead.

B1G-W standings after this weekend will be:

2-1 IA/IL winner
2-1 PU (if they beat UMD)
2-1 NU (if they beat UW)
2-1 UNL (if they beat RU)
1-1 MN
1-2 IA/IL loser
1-2 PU (if they lose)
1-2 NU (if they lose)
1-2 UNL (if they lose)
1-2 UW (if they beat NU)
0-3 UW (if they lose)

NorthernOhioBuckeye · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2022, 12:27:19 PM »

Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on October 07, 2022, 11:41:34 AM

This weekend's games by current Power Ranking:

#1 tOSU at #10 MSU
#2 M at #12 IU
#3 PSU is off
#4 UMD vs #5 PU
#6 MN is off
#7 IL vs #8 Iowa
#9 UW at #14 NU
#11 UNL at #13 RU

The two games between contiguous teams should provide some clarity.

Illinois vs Iowa not only involves contiguous teams (#7 and #8) but also involves two of the six teams currently tied for the B1G-W lead.

B1G-W standings after this weekend will be:
2-1 IA/IL winner
2-1 PU (if they beat UMD)
2-1 NU (if they beat UW)
2-1 UNL (if they beat RU)
1-1 MN
1-2 IA/IL loser
1-2 PU (if they lose)
1-2 NU (if they lose)
1-2 UNL (if they lose)
1-2 UW (if they beat NU)
0-3 UW (if they lose)

When first looking at your list, the Illinois vs Iowa game looked intriguing to me. Hopefully, it is a good game.

The next best game on the list looks to be UMD at Purdue. If Aidan O'Connell is healthy, this could be a high scoring game.

ELA · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2022, 01:27:31 PM »

Afternoon games in

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2022, 02:13:21 PM »

Quote from: NorthernOhioBuckeye on October 07, 2022, 12:27:19 PM

The next best game on the list looks to be UMD at Purdue. If Aidan O'Connell is healthy, this could be a high scoring game.

That PU/UMD game really highlights the perceived gap between the divisions. Based on our votes we collectively see the two as roughly even and Purdue is arguably the favorite in the B1G-W while UMD is a complete afterthought in the B1G-E.

ELA · « **Reply #6 on:** October 07, 2022, 03:30:11 PM »

All games in

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Topic: ELA October 8 Breakdown

ELA

ELA October 8 Breakdown

ELA

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NorthernOhioBuckeye

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