Michigan best bet

The Michigan Wolverines will host the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday at the Big House. Wisconsin so far this year is 2-2 overall, with a 0-1 conference record. They started the season by beating Miami (OH) and Middle Tennessee St. before losing to Alabama and Maryland in their last two games. 

The Badgers have had injury issues all over the field, but most notably at QB and offensive line. They are not expected back at full strength in this one either as the QB who started the season for them in Billy Edwards Jr. is still banged up and reportedly not likely to play against Michigan. 

The Badgers defense however has found some success in the early season in one key area: stopping the run. Now, they have yet to face a rushing attack like the one they’ll see in Ann Arbor on Saturday, but they held both Alabama and Maryland under 100 yards rushing. The far bigger problem for their defense has been the secondary, which has given up 382 and 265 passing yards against both Alabama and Maryland. 

Michigan on the other hand has beaten New Mexico, Central Michigan, and Nebraska while losing on the road at Oklahoma. So far this year Michigan has been a borderline elite rushing team but have struggled to generate a consistent passing attack against quality competition.

They do boast a quality defense though, that has racked up sacks and TFL numbers in bunches so far. They finished the Nebraska game with 7 total sacks and 9 TFL while also picking off Dylan Raiola once. 

All things considered, for college football best bets, I typically reference my favorite public power ratings set in the KFord Ratings. The KFord Ratings have Michigan as the 12th best team in the country, while Wisconsin is at 58th in the country. The KFord Ratings also have Michigan power rated as an 18.2 (18.2 points better than the average college football team), while Wisconsin is at a 3.2. To do some simple math and figure out a rough spread projection for this game, you simply subtract the Wisconsin power rating out of the Michigan power rating. In this case, that would put Michigan 15 points better than Wisconsin on a neutral field. For a typical home field advantage in college football, you add between 2-4 points to the home team’s score so for this one I’ll give Michigan an additional 3 points which would put it right at 18. 

With the spread currently at -17.5 in favor of the Wolverines, the power rating would show the slightest edge in favor of the Wolverines side but I’m actually going to disagree with the model on this one. I think with the Badgers being a much better run stuffing defense than a pass defense, it’s a bit of a bad matchup for Michigan’s offense. Michigan has a near elite run game but the passing game hasn’t really developed yet and I think the Badgers can keep this game close for a while before the Wolverines eventually overwhelm them. I got the Wolverines winning this one 30-14 so give me the Badgers +17.5 for the bet of the game in this one. 

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