Rolling This Year In College Football... Here's A Winner For Saturday
It's been a damn good year in college football for me. A bit higher bankroll unit and quality over quantity is the game. Currently on the season I'm 11-4 and off a 2-0 week here on the Saturday college football blogs.
Currently at the Barstool Sportsbook, Minnesota is a 6.5 point favorite against Illinois and the total is 39.5.
Minnesota has some really impressive numbers on offense this year, but they are a little misleading. This group has had one of the easiest schedules in the country to start the season. They played NM State, Colorado and Western Illinois who currently are a combined 1-15. They followed it up beating a below average Michigan State and then put up just ten when stepping up and playing Purdue in a loss.
This offense is pretty simple. They run the ball at a very high level, are very much lacking in wide receiver talent and have a typical game manager at QB. They also play one of the slowest tempos in America. The goal for them when possessing the ball is run the ball with Mo Ibrahim and if they don't convert, punt the ball and play defense, one that's among the best in America. Offense for the Golden Gophers won't come easy.
The Illinois defense is downright stingy. They are nails against the run giving up just 2.4 yards a carry, which is 4th in America. Currently in total scoring defense they sit at allowing just 9.6 points per game, just behind Minnesota whose number 1 in the country. Keep in mind, Illinois has allowed more than 11 points just once this year on defense.
Illinois has their own problems on offense, but they may be more pronounced. They, like Minnesota, want to hand the ball off to their big time running back in Chase Brown. They have the better option at QB generally, but may not tomorrow as Tommy DeVito may not play due to an injury. Illinois has had some issues moving the ball anyway and the offense line has struggled to block up front which has also given them issues in the red zone, where they sit at 115th in America at finishing drives. Minnesota defense is nasty also and sits at top of America in scoring defense. They have a great secondary and a good solid blue collar rushing defense in the trenches.
These two defenses don't even allow much consistency to even happen for the opposing offenses. They are both top five nationally in third down conversion percentage defense as well. As I said earlier as well both of these offenses are SLOW and will play at a crawl. Last year's matchup was 14-6, and I don't see much different here.
I played the UNDER 39.5. I feel like this is 17-14, 20-13 something along those lines.
For more college football breakdowns for today, check out my show Big Man on Betting for this week. It's live every Thursday on the Barstool Sportsbook YouTube at 4pm EST