PSPKNINE'S  Big Ten picks - Week 13   UPDATED

Well, week 12 in the Big Ten was very interesting, with bowl implications throughout.  Wisconsin made a statement, as did Ohio State, Penn State, Northwestern and Iowa.  Some of those statements were not real loud of course but all of those teams stated that they wanted to play in a bowl game.

Wisconsin said "Hey, let us in".  Ohio State said that they are still around lurking in the recesses.  Penn State said that they were still alive, at least defensively.  Northwestern said that they have some tenacity left in them and Iowa said "Wow, that was a hell of a party". 

Some might say that Michigan even stated that they really didn't care about anything at this point in their season.  Personally I just think it was a bit more of the same from Michigan - look decent in the first half but fall off the second half.  Some might even say that they were saving themselves for the Ohio State game.  We will have to see about that.

Well, without further ado, on to this week's picks:

I am going to update the blog a bit early this evening - in fact WAY early.  Iowa and Minnesota are still in the third quater of their game.  I really have no business updating this post at this point but, after being at Beaver Stadium for most of the day, I am still cold and I have the wood cooking in here so I am looking for an excuse to stay put right now.  That and of course I am very happy with the way my picks have gone this week of course.  Besides that, Iowa put Minnesota away in the first half so that game is about as over as it can get.

Talk about some big scores today?  Today has been nothing like the rest of the Big Ten season.

While I'm here and thinking about it, I would also like to point out that it is now time for all Big Ten fans to start cheering on all the other Big Ten teams that will be representing in the upcoming bowl season.  I am asking for an official end to the intra-conference sniping at this point and the official start of the Big Ten fan club as opposed to individual team fan clubs.  Go BIG TEN. 

Indiana (3-8) @ Purdue (3-8): 

Purdue has now lost 7 of their last 8 games and Indiana has lost 8 of their last 9.  The showdown at Purdue this weekend could be a real test of wills for these two teams.  Both teams are currently sporting 3 and 8 records, so this game will determine the bottom of the Big Ten cellar for 2008.

Purdue offers a bit more of a passing attack than Indiana and the Hoosiers offer a bit more of a running game.  Both defenses are fairly ordinary however Purdue has put in a few good defensive efforts this year.

One interesting stat in this game is that Purdue has played five teams ranked in the top 25.  They haven't won any of them but I would suggest that their competition might have been a bit better than Indiana's this year.  A second stat that jumps out at me is the fact that Indiana has not won a game on the road this year.  A guy I know once told me that if you have two bad teams playing each other, stick with the home team.  I would have to agree with that thought.

And the envelope says:  Purdue 27 - Indiana 14

What actually happened - Purdue 62 - Indiana 10    WTF, did I see that right?

Ok, I want to talk to the person that truly envisioned this score in this game.  Go ahead, raise your hand...... I'll wait. 

I didn't think so.  Holy smokes, Painter was on fire in this one.  Painter accounted for all but a fraction of 479 yards passing by the Boilers, while they ammassed 35 first downs and 596 total yards.  Holy smokes.  I'm sorry Ed but that is total ownage.  To top that off Indiana gave up two interceptions and a fumble.  A dominating game just does not get any more complete than this game.  Well, check that for right now.  Iowa is winning 48-0 just starting the fourth quarter of their game.          

Illinois (5-6) @ Northwestern (8-3): 

This game also offers a contrast in style.  Illinois is more offensive-minded than Northwestern and Northwestern is more defensive-minded than Illinois.  

The Juice has the potential to be a real game breaker, both with his arms and his legs.  Of course Northwestern plays solid defense, with their opponents averaging 20 points per game.

Bacher for Northwestern has thrown 12 touchdowns and 13 interceptions on the year.  Additionally, Northwestern does not have a real go-to back, with Sutton accumulating just 770 yards on 150 carries this year.  Kafka actually has the better numbers of the two quarterbacks but he still has thrown more pics than touchdowns.  

Juice Williams has passed for 1,000 yards more than the Northwestern quarterbacks and their running game has also been more productive with Juice racking up almost as many yards on the ground as Sutton has for Northwestern.  Of course their defense gives up over 26 points per game too, so they need the extra offense just to compete.

Here is an interesting stat of the game.  Northwestern is 1 and 2 at home against the Big Ten this year.  Something else to ponder is that Illinois is 1-4 away from Champagne.  I think Northwestern evens their home record against the Big Ten.

And the envelope says: Northwestern 27 - Illinois 17

What actually happened:  Northwestern 27 - Illinois 10.

Ok, I was fairly close on this pick.  Actually this game might have been the best watch today as these teams played a very even football game statistically.  Both teams got 21 first downs and total net yardage gained was 339 for Northwestern and 335 for Illinois.  The Penalties were reasonably close and each team has one interception.  Time of possession did favor Illinois by almost two minutes.  Illinois did have a fumble however, while Northwestern did not.

This biggest difference between these two besides the extra fumble by Illinois was punt return yardage, one of which set Northwestern up at the Illinois 20 yard line.  

I'm sorry that Illinois did not get their 6th win and become bowl eligible but I am happy that Northwestern got the win and could get the nod for a New Year's Day bowl.  

Five Big Ten teams playing on or after New Year's Day this year would be a bit much to hope for but it sure would be fun.  I'll push for three though.       

Michigan (3-8) @ Ohio State (9-2):

This game is one that should not be close.  Ohio State should dominate this game from the start.  With that said, Michigan has played a couple decent first halves of football this year.  They even played for all 60 minutes once or twice this year.  I think that Michigan will have to play for about 90 minutes in this game to have any shot at all.

Ohio State has a good ground game and their defense is very strong.  Their linebackers are real ball hawks and they have great closing speed.  Laurinaitus will most likely collect a slew of post season awards, deservedly so.   

Offensively, Ohio State has come into their own of late, even showing on occasion that they can open up the playbook and grab some big chunks of yardage quickly.  Pryor is playing well and continually getting better.  Pryor has over 100- yards passing for the year after starting on the bench and he has rushed for 560 yards which is only 400 fewer than Wells.  Of course Wells missed several games also.  

Michigan plays a half decent rush defense but nowhere close to as good as they need to be to compete with Ohio State.  They have a decent defensive front and they might be able to put a little pressure on young Pryor but I do not believe that Michigan can show Ohio State anything that they haven't seen before this year.

Michigan might make this look like it could be a close game for the first 20 minutes or so.  If Ohio State does not come out and punch Michigan right in the mouth from the start this game could end up looking a lot closer than it should be.  Ohio State just has too much talent and skill for that however.  Michigan winds up ties for the Big Ten basement.  How long has it been since that has happened?

And the envelope says:  Ohio State 35 - Michigan 14

What actually happened:  Ohio State 42 - Michigan 7.

Hmmm, not too far off on the score, 7 points for each team.  This game was an example of pure domination also.  Michigan was 1 for 17 on their third down attempts, the gained 198 total yards and they gave up two fumbles.  No team has a chance of doing that and beating the Buckeyes.  To go along with their defensive domination, Ohio State's offense looked solid, gaining 416 yards with 232 of those yards coming from the running game.

There were very few penalties in this game.  One stat that doesn't get much attention are the punt returns.  A quick snapshot of the game would be Ohio State's 5 returns for 110 yards, compared to 2 returns for 10 yards for Michigan.

Ohio State should be playing in a BCS bowl and I believe, deservedly so.  I'm thinking Orange Bowl.  For Michigan, what can be said after the worst record in school history besides that Rich Rod will get you there eventually.  You have some talent and, as soon as Rich gets some guys in their that can thrive playing his schemes, you will be right back in the thick of things.  Just please quit losing recruits.           

Cal Poly @ Wisconsin (6-5):

You might have noticed that I did not enter Cal Poly's record for the year behind their name above.  That is not because I am too lazy to look it up, it is just because their record simply does not matter.  That and of course maybe I am just lazy.

Wisconsin is playing more like a Wisconsin team should play of late and they are playing at home in the final game of the regular season to get to 7-5 on the year and a respectable bowl game.  Notwithstanding their ugly game last week, they have been getting more consistent and hard-nosed as the year goes on.

Hold the phone though guys.  This little Cal Poly team is not someone that should be taken lightly.  These guys put up numbers that look more like basketball scores than football scores.  Wait a minute, I follow Penn State, remember?  Their scores look like Penn State's basketball scores, maybe not the basketball scores for the rest of the Big Ten.

In their last game, the Cal Poly Mustangs won 51-27.  They gained 522 total yards for the game and 427 of those yards came on the ground.  What's more is that Cal Poly is ranked fifth in the FCS division in rushing defense.  Their opponents in that last game (UC Davis) gained 366 yards in total offense, only 34 of them came on the ground.  Cal Poly has won 7 straight games now this year and their record is 8 and 1.  See, I'm not that lazy.

In their one loss this year, Arkansas, Little Rock beat them 67 - 40.  That's where my basketball score analogy came from.

The long and the short of it is that Cal Poly is not coming into Wisconsin to be nice, to make a paycheck or to try to attract some attention.  They are coming to pull an Appalachian State on Wisconsin's ass and if Wisconsin isn't ready to play this game things could get real ugly, real fast.

Please Wisconsin, for the sake of your bowl game and the Big Ten conference in general, please pummel these guys and do it right out of the box.  Don't let them hang around.  If you overlook these guys they will put some numbers up on the board on you and it would seem that they might be able to hold PJ Hill to a mild roar in the ground game.

This game is really not a good situation for Wisconsin.  Nothing good can come of it for them.  If they win, even if they win huge, everyone just says it was a FCS division school and the game is forgotten.  If they play it close though or, heaven forbid, lose the game, then both Wisconsin and the Big Ten suck and are overrated, etc.  Let's hope that doesn't happen.

And the envelope says:  Wisconsin 27 - Cal Poly 24                                       Way too close for my liking.

What actually happened:  Wisconsin 36 - Cal Poly 35.

I was worried about Cal Poly giving the Badgers as much as they could handle and they pushed about as far as a team can go without winning, like into overtime.  If Cal Poly could just make an extra point, any of three actually, this game would have been a Loss for the Badgers. 

Cal Poly outrushed the Badgers 276 yards to 184 yards.  Wow.  Cal Poly came into the game with a great rushing attack but against the Badgers?  They showed why their rushing game has been so successul today.  Their quarterback ran for 118 yards on 23 carries and their main running back gained 81 yards on 15 carries.

Luckily, Wisconsin's Sherer had some good success throwing the ball, getting 245 yards out of 13 completions.  Wisconsin had two turnovers that helped keep Cal Poly in the game.

The Mustangs actually dominated both the first downs (23 to 17) and the time of possession (all but 40 minutes to just over 20 minutes).  How odd is that for a game against Wisconsin in Wisconsin?  Wisconsin did hold the edge in total yardage gained though and, other than the two turnovers, they played a fairly mistake-free game, only getting two five yard penalties.  Cal Poly only had 1 five-yard penalty so both teams played cleanly.

This game pushes Wisconsin's record to 7and 5, which gives them a better shot at a decent bowl game.  Hopefully it will give them an idea of some things to work on too between now and whatever bowl game it is that they play in this year.                      

Iowa (7-4) @ Minnesota (7-4):

Now this game could be a last second thriller.  Both teams are 7-4 with Iowa holding the edge over Minnesota in the big ten, 4-3 versus 3-4 for Minnesota.  Both teams are playing for the possibility of receiving an invitation to a very good bowl date.

Minnesota has had more success through the air offensively than they have on the ground for the most part.  Iowa's defense is much tougher against the run than they are the pass.  This would seem to favor Minnesota.

Iowa likes to run the ball.  Who wouldn't with Greene in their backfield?  Minnesota just is not overly impressive defensively against either the run or the pass.  That would seem to favor Iowa.

If Minnesota can load up against the run they could make things a bit more difficult for Greene.  He will get his 100 yard game again even if Minnesota plays with eleven in the box, but he might not run for 200 again this week if Minnesota loads up the line of scrimmage.

I think that the most telling stat in this game is the fact that Iowa thus far this year is 1-3 away from Kinnick Stadium.  First, they have only played four games away from home and secondly, their only road win was against Indiana.  We cannot forget that Iowa has been in every game they have played this year though, home or away.  This is a team that could easily be 9-2 on the season and maybe even better.

Minnesota has lost two home games this year and those were their last two, against Northwestern and Michigan.  Iowa also lost to Northwestern at home.  

Iowa did not look particularly impressive last weekend, which might have been understandable, but Minnesota hasn't looked impressive for several weeks now, losing their last three games.   

If Minnesota were back to playing like they were earlier in the season I would think that these teams were evenly matched.  This game is difficult to call, between Minnesota's losing streak and Iowa's troubles on the road.  I believe though that Iowa's physical nature will win out in the long run.    

The envelope says:  Iowa 20 - Minnesota 17. 

What actually happened:  Iowa 55 - Minnesota 0.

Well, here we are back to the theme for the day - domination.  This game just finished up so I will gladly announce that I am 5 and 0 for this week's picks.  Yep, that just broke my cherry on picking at least all of the winners right.  Of course I could not have been further off on my prediction of the score for this game.  Again, we all knew that Iowa has a great defense but who would have really thought that an Iowa team that had previously lost 3 of their 4 road games this year would have gone Into Minneapolis and come away with a score anything near this?  Well, ok, I'm sure that IHawk was hoping, but I doubt that he ever thought it would be anything quite like this.

Pure ownage from start to finish.  The First downs were 26 to 6, 3rd down efficiency was 71% to 21 %, rushing yards were 227 to 7, passing yards were 261 to 127 and total yards were 488 to 134.  134 total yards??  Holy smokes Iowa, what were you trying to do here?  Minnesota trumped that performance by also giving up three turnovers.  In this game though I don't believe that the turnovers would have made much of a difference.

Tell you what this game does more than anything else.  It tells Iowa's bowl opponent that they are going to have a difficult time deailing with this defense and they better spend a lot of time worrying about both Greene and Stanzi because, as good as Greene is, this Iowa offense is not one-dimensional.

Unfortunately it also tells Minnesota's bowl opponent that Minnesota's record might not be a true reflection on the type of team that will present itself on game day.  Yes, I know that Minnesota has a lot of guys out right now.  Many of those people are key ingredients in what went into making this a successful year for Minnesota.  To be this thoroughly dominated though simply does not bode well for you going into your bowl game.

I truly hope that Iowa has a shot at a New Year's Day bowl.  A statement like this should certainly make their case for them.                            

Now for my game of the week.                                             Michigan State (9-2) @ Penn State (10-1):

Michigan State is having their best season in years and they are coming off a bye week.  Penn State is coming off an OK performance last week but it was against Indiana so it might be difficult to tell just what kind of performance the Lions really had.  

Michigan State as a team is not great at a lot, with the exception of running Ringer successfully most of the time.  Ringer has gained over 1500 yards on the season.  Michigan State offensively, other than Ringer is somewhat mediocre.  Defensively Michigan State holds most teams down to a reasonable number on points scored, with the exception of Ohio State of course and they play well against the pass.  Not real well, but well enough to keep them out of trouble for the most part.

It might be easy to say that Michigan State is a one-dimensional team but you just cannot forget about Hoyer quarterbacking the Spartans.  Hoyer has passed for over 2,000 yards this season and he spreads those yards out evenly between three receivers.

Statistically, Penn State should dominate this game.  They are ranked much better on both sides of the ball.  You know what that means though, right?  Not a whole lot.  Unfortunately, Penn State goes as their heads go.  If Penn State is mentally ready to play, they can play well against anyone in the country.  If they are just not ready to go they can look bad against just about anyone in the country.  

Penn State has not gotten over their loss to Iowa yet.  I said last week that the Lions needed to heal during their game against Indiana.  Well, the Lion defense was ready to go but their offense shot themselves in the foot more often than not.  That is totally a between the ears sort of problem.  I also stated that Penn State had to come out and play a dominant game last week to have any chance of beating Michigan State this week.  There was simply nothing dominant about the Penn State offense last week, at least not early.

Understand that I think Penn State will come out and be more prepared for Michigan State this week than they were for Indiana last week.  I still believe that they start slowly though and maybe even fall behind early, as has happened too frequently this year.  I'm looking for a first quarter score of 14 - 7 Michigan State.  I wouldn't be surprised if the teams go into half time tied at 21.

I would be very surprised then if Penn State does not come out and dominate during the second half of this game.  They have dominated just about every second half this year with the exception of the Iowa game.  

And the envelope says:  Penn State 42 - Michigan State 21

What really happened:  Penn State 49 - Michigan State 18.

I wasn't too far off on the score for this one.  I had an inkling, and a little inside information, that the Penn State offense would be back to it's normal self this week.  Darryl Clark was a world-beater today.  He played an excellent game against a very good football team.  I would like to say that this game was a very dominant performance for Penn State but that would not be 100 % correct.  

Michigan State had more first downs than Penn State, 23 to 19.  Michigan State also gained 173 yards on kickoff returns compared to Penn State's 54 yards.  The time of possession was almost even, as were the penalty yards. 

After that though, Penn State pretty much dominated.  Penn State gained 557 total yards to Michigan State's 332.  Penn State averaged 8.4 yards per play to Michigan State's 4.4 yards.  3rd down efficiency was 76% to 25 % in favor of Penn State and, the biggest stat of the game was that Penn State held Michigan State to 35 net yards rushing.  I fully expected Ringer to gain a lot more yards than he did.  Ringer gained 42 yards on 17 carries.  Understand though that Ringer did not get the touches that he normally does due to the fact that MSU was playing catch up for a good portion of the game.

A second huge stat was that Penn State had no turnovers while Michigan State had two interceptions, one of which really hurt them in the first half leading to a quick touchdown for Penn State.

I have to tell you, I was at this game and, even though it felt like it was zero degrees out there, being there today was really great.  Did you see me there?  I was the one wearing all white.  Seriously, this was a very important win for Penn State, securing their second Big Ten Championship (although shared with Ohio State again) in the last 3 years.  That's not too bad for the new kid on the block with an 81 year old coach.  Of course this game did tend to serve notice on either USC or Oregon State.  It told USC that, if they wind up going to the Rose Bowl they are not in for a cakewalk.  It told Oregon State that we got a lot more abuse here for you.

Michigan State fans, SparT, do not despair.  You have a very talented team there.  I had not given your linebackers the credit that they deserve before this game.  Your linebackers can move and hit people.  Your offense is good with Hoyer and Ringer supplying a one-two punch and I was impressed with your coach today, at least right up until the last minute when he called two time-outs in a row just to make me sit for another couple minutes in what felt like sub zero weather.  WTF was that about anyway?  SparT, are you really Dantonio?  Did you just do this to me to get back at me?  

I cerainly hope that he wasn't too critical of Penn State's throwing for one last touchdown with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter.  I mean you guys got your first touchdown with 22 seconds left in the first half and your second touchdown with 1:09 left in the game.  If you guys play until the end I see no reason to be upset about the other guys playing to the end.  Besides that you have shown that you have a propensity for coming back from behind.                  

Well folks, those are my fearless predictions for this week in Big Ten Football.  I will have links posted here for two other Big Ten blogs, one by Seabass and one by IHawk.  Seabass is the original Ohio State homer and of course IHawk sort of likes Iowa a little.  Don't ask me why though........

Their blogs certainly offer a different perspective and, most likely, different picks.  Their links will be right here as soon as those guys get their picks up.

 

Follow this link to go to the Seabass blog.

Follow this link to go to IHawk's blog.  Those are his weekly predictions.  IHawk also puts up a first look that offers some analysis not seen here.  That post is here:  IHawk's 1st look         

I plan on coming out with a quick look at the bowl games once the match-ups are announced.  I will also have my picks for all of the Big Ten bowl games out a few days before the first bowl game.  Until then, see you on the blogs.