1. Michigan State at Purdue
LINE Michigan State -3
ATS PICK Michigan State
I have failed you miserably, America.
Overall, these picks in this piece haven’t been too bad, but the No. 1 spot has been brutal.
To be fair, it took a whole slew of shocking disasters for this to be this bad.
There was the ridiculous under that came in last week on the Iowa-Wisconsin 36.5 point total.
There was Kansas breaking a historic ATS losing streak with that game against Oklahoma.
There was the insanity of Army covering the spread on the top statistical defense in America by throwing the ball in the final moments – yeah, Army, throwing the ball – against a Wisconsin team that had chance after chance after chance to put the ATS win away easily.
There was the pain and suffering of the hook – with Michigan beating Nebraska by 3 when it was giving away 3.5 – and there was the sweating of Arizona State and UCLA putting on a wild show in the first half, only to stall in bizarre fashion before finally hitting the over on a late Sun Devil touchdown.
In Week 4, I gave you Oregon -28.5 against Arizona. It was 24-19 Ducks in the fourth before 17 straight points helped them pull away. Just when it seemed like order would be restored and the 28.5 would hit, everyone just sort of stopped with over eight minutes to play, even though the Wildcats were busy throwing more interceptions.
It’s time to steer through the skid and do this right. It’s time for a big game call.
Purdue has a strong defense. It’s going to keep the score low and the game close.
Michigan State is coming off the huge win over Michigan that’s being given a whole lot of CFP love considering how lopsided a whole lot of parts of that game were.
It got pushed way too hard by a bad Indiana team, it took a wee bit to open it up on Rutgers, the Nebraska game was a close 23-20 fight, and now it has to deal with a Purdue squad that already took down a No. 2 team when it stomped on Iowa.
Now it wants to beat a No. 3.
Can Purdue run the ball? Not a lick.
Can Purdue stop the run? Yeah, but Wisconsin ran for 290 yards and won easily, and Minnesota was able to go into West Lafayette and win by seven even though the ground game wasn’t great.
Does Purdue have the offensive line to keep one of the best pass rushing teams in the country out of the backfield? Not even close.
Oh this will be a battle, and there will be nothing easy about getting there because, again, it’s in the cursed No. 1 slot, but I’m done being cute by half.
Michigan State -3.
(Oh, so you’re not a believer that the No. 1 cooler is over and you’re racing to take Purdue … I’m hurt, but I understand.)
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