[dmoney416]

Bowling Green (+18) at Michigan St.

I believe that this line opened at 15, which I thought was pretty reasonable. Both teams surpassed expectations last week, with Bowling Green beating Minnesota outright and Michigan St. thrashing a hapless UAB squad. However, this line started creeping up toward 17 and 18, which I thought was too much. Give me three scores here all day.

Both of these team's performances is probably a little deceiving. UAB was even worse than expected, and Minneosta was helpless until the 4th quarter.

Michigan St.'s numbers were ridiculous against UAB. Hoyer was 14-17 for 200 yards and a TD, and the running game racked nearly 300 yards behind Caulcrick, Ringer, and Jimmerson.

The defense was solid as well. UAB had no running game to speak of, and while Hunt ended up throwing for 214 yards, much of that was in garbage time.

What I think is deceiving about this game is the 55 points. People forget that this team is still coached by Mark DAntonio. He will not run up the score on teams. This game happened to be a case of Michigan St. being so much more talented that they were able to put up points anyway. Do not expect this offensive output every week.

In his last two years at Cincinnati, they scored over 30 points exactly twice. One of these is against Eastern Kentuck in a 31-0 win, and the other is a 30-11 win over Rutgers. Granted, he will have much more offensive talent at Michigan St. But, he is still an advocator of running and hard-nosed defense as opposed to airing it out. He doesn't mind winning game 17-10.

On special teams, Mich St's punter was poor in limited action. Aaron Bates only averaged 32.3 per punt on 3 punts.

Bowling Green employed a new spread passing attack against Minnesota and it worked wonders. Tyler Sheehan was 34/51 for 388 yards and 2 TDs, and most importantly, no turnovers. They also efficient enough on the ground to keep Minny honest, rushing for 100 yards on 22 carries (4.5 per rush). What I like about this match-up is that spread offenses gave Mich St fits last season. They gave up over 200 passing yards to every team on their schedule last season with the exception on Idaho, Illinois, and Michigan. They gave up 231 yards passing per game last year, and the passing attacks of teams like Pittsburgh and Notre Dame were difficult for them to stop. Not comparing BG to those teams, but their scheme may work well here.

I have no doubts that DAntonio will improve his defense, but they were awful against the pass last season and the UAB game really does not give up any information on whether or not they have progressed in that area.

My biggest worry in this game is that BG will not be able to stop MSU's rushing attack. They gave up 4.1 ypr last season, and while they return 6 of their top 7 tacklers from last season, Minnsota's Amir Pinnix had his way last week, especially at the tail end of the game where he seemed to wear them down.

However, I feel that BG's new passing attack along with DAntonio's conservative coaching style will lead to a BG cover. At the very least, the backdoor will be open here.

31-20 MSU