The oddsmakers and America aren’t giving No. 17 Iowa much of a chance versus No. 2 Michigan in the Big Ten Championship game.
Per BetMGM, the Wolverines are more than a three-touchdown favorite over the Hawkeyes. In terms of the College Football Playoff, most are looking elsewhere for potential championship weekend chaos.
What happens if there are four unbeatens? Would the CFP selection committee seriously consider leaving an undefeated Florida State at home in favor of a one-loss Big 12 champion Texas?
How would the committee handle Alabama shocking Georgia, Oregon evening the score against Washington, Texas handling Oklahoma State and Florida State taking care of business against Louisville? Under that scenario, the CFP selection committee would have a logjam of six one-loss teams to sort through.
Of course, each of these scenarios assumes the obvious, right: Michigan beats Iowa. Nobody has stopped this week to seriously consider the idea of the Hawkeyes playing championship week and CFP spoiler.
But, what if it’s Iowa?
Longtime Hawkeye head coach Kirk Ferentz is ready to play the role of comedian in Indianapolis from inside Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night.
“We’re 0-for-2 over there, and both teams have gone on to the College Football Playoffs, so I think that’s kind of a commonality, too. When you get in this game you’re going to be playing somebody, who if they’re victorious, that’s where they’re going. If we would win, I mean, that would really screw things up, I’m guessing. It might be kind of funny actually. That in itself. But, that’s a whole different subject,” Ferentz said.
It will obviously be a tall task for the Hawkeyes against the Wolverines. Like Iowa, Michigan enters with one of the nation’s stingiest defenses.
The Wolverines bring the country’s No. 2 total defense and top-ranked scoring defense. Michigan allows just 246.8 yards of total offense to opponents and surrenders just 10.25 points per game.
Meanwhile, the Wolverines boast the nation’s No. 13 scoring offense (37.6 points per game) and bring the Big Ten’s Griese-Brees Quarterback of the Year in junior J.J. McCarthy and Ameche-Dayne Running Back of the Year in senior Blake Corum.
McCarthy has thrown for 2,483 yards and 19 touchdowns against just four picks and run for an additional three scores and 181 yards. Meanwhile, Corum has racked up 976 rushing yards and 22 rushing touchdowns.
What will it take to top this Michigan team? Something similar to the effort from inside Kinnick Stadium back in 2016 when the Hawkeyes shocked then-No. 3 Michigan, 14-13.
“And I don’t know if it’s representative totally, but it really is when you play—and we’re underdogs a lot—when you play in a game like that, you pretty much have to be on top of your game in each and every way and some way you have to try to force something, maybe a mistake or try to do something that maybe gets the opponent off schedule.
“If they do make a mistake you’ve got to capitalize whenever that come available. I think outside that game we blew a two-point conversion, it looked like it was going to be pretty good. Outside of that we didn’t do much to hurt ourselves and we did some things to help ourselves, too,” Ferentz said.
Though Iowa lost 42-3 in the 2021 Big Ten Championship game and 27-14 versus the Wolverines last season, the hope is that some familiarity might help.
“And the bottom line you’ll just have to compete as well as you possibly can and that’s certainly what we’re looking at this week. And I guess if it’s a good thing, this would be the third time in three years that we played them. So there’s some familiarity there.
“The bad news is there’s some familiarity. And you have a real respect for the way they are, the way they’re coached at every position and the way their guys play. And a lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces, too, and those new ones are very impressive,” Ferentz said.
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