BIG WEEK 2

HUNT

CTG Partner
Staff member
All fuck yous are very much a welcome.

week 1 hot takes from me...I'll keep it short and to the point..

Minnesota vs NMSU..I missed it so someone can maybe fill me in or anyone who missed it.

Northwestern vs Purdue...Missed this as well...did Thorson look good? Figured FItz would keep that a secret as long as he could..

Wisconsin Vs. WKU...Man is wku ever bad? my goodness. Very old school to see Chryst pull Taylor after the fumble and never return..I like that in a coach. Horni is, well, horni.

Michigan State vs. USU... MSU pass d was atrocious..specifically the linebackers and CB's. They definitely had oline issues too. Lewerke had his moments..just not a consistent qb.

Ohio State vs. Beavers...Bucks could have scored 100 if they wanted to. Have some issues in secondary but they'll get fixed. Haskins is no joke. Mikey Weber ran with fire. Just a filthy filthy team

Penn State Appy st...Missed most of this as well. Was surprised at the score.

Michigan vs ND...Same team as last year based on week 1. Offense still in dinosaur age. Harbaugh really needs to hand the offense over to a good, young offensive mindset who gets it in 2018, not rely on his dad Jack who still thinks it's 1975. D played better in second half..but thought overall the team speed was slow...by a lot. Patterson looked uncomfortable, and is not good with his hands up the centers ass...needs to be uotempo, able to run and create...this is circa denard 2014 under Hoke..square peg don't fit round holes man.

Maryland vs Texas...Sam Ehrlinger is not gong to win at Texas. Not sure what Herman is thinking. When Matt Canada beats you with basically a more archaic offense than Michigan for a game you got issues.

Missed the rest...but heard about how bad Illinois was.

week 2 hot takes...I haven't seen all the teams yet, so don't have a lot of info on most..I don't rely on magazines..only my two eyes.

Wisconsin/NMU...another 35-3?

Western Michigan/Michigan...lol, really who cares right? Michigan will go back to their 3 yards and a cloud of dust..be successful, and the old blue hairs of the fan base will be happy again.

Duke/NW..Interesting game here...I like this Duke uptempo o.

EMU vs Purdue...Don't know shit about EMU

Rutgers vs Ohio State...85 this week? Why not..Expect to see a lot of Martell in this one after half..

Nebraska vs Colorado..points, points

Iowa vs Iowa State...no points

Maryland/ BG...I was told BG was pretty bad, Maryland coming off huge win...no clue.

VA/Indiana...no clue

West Illinois/Illinois..no clue

Fresno/Minny...I like this fresno team..I think they'll score in this one...

PSU/Pitt...Pitt with the upset

Michigan State/ASU..ASU will give MSU fits...all night.

bye
 
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I am going to do a few quick hitters. I have around 15 minutes to type some stuff before I am gone for the day. I'll have more on Monday evening or Tuesday morning...


Northwestern usually comes out pretty uneven early in the season. They came out looking strong, imo. I didn't see a lot of the 2nd half so I am not exactly sure what adjustments were made but they looked good early.

Wisconsin simply isn't a top 5 team. Rankings do not matter but that was still way to high to put them at. Now, it was a typical ugly Wisconsin game where they bleed a lot of clock and don't live up to gambling expectations. That is why I will never bet on their games anymore, it isn't worth it. You could say, take the other team and then we get a Booster situation like the Maryland game last year. No thanks. Hornibrook is what he is, bad. The defense isn't as good as last year although it is still 'good', just not great.

Michigan State has these weird Friday night games where they struggle to start the season quite a bit. Now, their o-line is still hot garbage and their linebackers leave much to be desired. They obviously miss Josiah Scott as well. LeTurkey makes plays good and bad, like usual and Felton Davis might be the best receiver in the conference. He is a manimal. You never thought they would lose but Utah State made it interesting at least but just couldn't get a stop when it was winning time.

Penn State is another team I did not quite get the hype for and it showed. This isn't that great of a team. I would expect them to improve and they have a solid QB but they are liable to lose 3-4 games this year. I think Pitt will be a sexy dog to the masses this week but I'll talk more about the likes and don't likes of that later in the week.

Minnesota played NMSU. I can't gauge much there.

OSU was in a perfect betting spot and still barely covered. I didn't bet it because I overthought it but that was a lot of anger let out on offense. As I have said for over a year now, Haskins is the real deal and he makes this offense EASILY the best C.U.M. has ever had at his disposal. It isn't even close. The d-line is obviously great and I am sure they will shore up the defensive backfield issues.

Illinois had a lot of guys out and isn't all that impressive anyways.

Indiana, I saw nothing. The same goes for Iowa other than the halftime score.

Nebraska, one less week to get acclimated. I do not like that at all.

Maryland? Good early burst, then quiet then a good late burst. They are what they have been...a slowly improving team. They will win one B10 game this year that they should not.

Rutgers kept things simple and slow.

I'll get into Michigan next time around. Lets say we didn't watch the game.... just looked at boxscores etc...

1. Okay, they lost to a team ranked higher than them on the road to open season. It happens. Move on.

2. Notre Dame dismantled Michigan State in EL last year early on until a few good drives late by MSU made the box look much more even.


Obviously though, most of us saw the game... gonna watch again before I comment more.

I will say and have already, I knew this game was over around middle of the 1st quarter. It just was....

TTYL(phew, did that in 13 minutes)
 
I got the impression watching NW and Purdue that those are two pretty good teams. Purdue’s defense needs to catch up a bit and Moore is amazing.

What do you guys expect from Nebraska on defense? I liked what I saw from Colorado.
 
New Mexico gave up 566 yards to Incarnate Word yesterday. Pair that with New Mexico State game on deck, it’s impossible not to like Wisconsin next week.
 
Mich -24, NW -2, OSU -33, Wisky -33, Purdue -14. Early lines for next week that are out.
 
Yeah....the overreaction bet of the week will be on Pitt
If you have done this long enough, you know to be weary there
 
Thought before the season Pitt beating PSU wouldn't be an upset, nothing changed my mind about that yesterday
 
Have a feeling PSU may put one on Pitt if given the chance (if they are even good enough to do so) I'm sure Pitt will try to slow it down on them. 75% of stadium will be PSU fans. Don't think App St is getting enough credit, they have some nice talent.

Liking chalk this week with PSU ( if i can get under 7), Michigan and probably OSU. Bounce backs for PSU and Michigan, scary but zig zag to me. Both teams with a lot to prove this week.
 
Yeah....the overreaction bet of the week will be on Pitt
If you have done this long enough, you know to be weary there

Except 71% on Psu and line moving in PSU‘s favor. If you want overreaction check out Oklahoma, OSU, among others.
 
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Just bc a team sucks in one week doesn‘t mean it‘ll magically fix its issues in another week. Some teams will bounce back others won‘t. Pitt gonna be a superbowl atmosphere, Pitt may be meh (tho good playmaker in Hall especially) but they get up for Penn State kinda like Aggies for Bama. PSU can‘t say enough how ugly they were. How many timeouts called cause defenders couldn‘t figure out to know where to line up? Blow-ups cause cb didn‘t sink, blown assignments, atrocious tackling, not to mention chem issues on offense. Northwestern D took a few games last year to stop tackling like shit and find itself im thinking its more like that for PSU than a complete 180 in a week

@spooks
 
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Frosh DE Parsons playing at linebacker. Former running back at safety former corner at other safety. Nobodies at d-tackle. D-line missing buchholz. Leaders cabinda and allen gone. Its literally a make-shift defense. I‘d be impressed if they make a 180 in a week

@spooks here are thoughts about psu
 
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Regardless remember the move from 7.5 and 9.5 are somewhat worthless (maybe mean a bit more in CFB due to missed XPs) but that will likely bounce between 7 and 10 all week. Massive number betting on PSU from the go, think Pitt will get plenty of yds in the air anyway, may not turn into points...but could see both 3rd down defenses having issues getting off the field. Seems coin flippish to me, not that I think Pitt should be favored by any means but again, either team winning the game wouldn't be a surprise.
 
Sounds like a clock bleeder. Maybe n.m. TT u.
I watched NM/ Incarnate Word (your laugh here) NM defense really struggle vs the hurry up IW offense. NM offense is more dynamic. Put up some big (for them) passing yards in this game. But I thought they were misleading. Lot of jump balls and ball thrown up for grabs that their receivers just outmanned IW.

More interested in the NM tt under in this one and the under as well.
 
I wanted to talk about box score capping a bit.

It has to be done correctly.

I will use another ND game as an example. Last year they went up to MSU and just demolished them. Well, in the 4th quarter the Spartans pulled out everything they could to make a historic comeback. They got a few scores I believe, kept going for 2 etc. They racked up a lot of yards while ND was happy enough to not turn the ball over at all. For the weeks after that game all you would hear from many people is how MSU 'outgained' them etc. That isn't the true story of the game.

Now, this week, Michigan slightly outgained ND. There are many factors here and it wasn't really garbage time but don't read into that too much. You can read into it that ND had 4-5 huge plays which accounted for a lot of yardage. You can read into it that the few times Michigan ran a more tempo offense it actually gained yards.

Anyways, I just always want to point that out for people when capping. There is many deep ways to look at things.
 
Let me hit some points with Michigan...


The biggest problem is the tackles. That pretty much is killer in any offense. Now, I would love to see the young guys playing instead. They were 'apparently; very neck and neck in fall camp so why not go with the upside? Hey, Notre Dame has a good defense and we knew that coming in so in retrospect if you knew the Tackles would have gotten worse then you absolutely saw most of that coming. Mich says that the same 5 are starting this week. My own personal take there is that either they are lying or they are wishin and hopin they can make improvements the next two weeks.

Now, I do trust this O-line to improve this year. Warriners track record is solid in that regard. In past years, basically the lines would regress but I think we see slight improvement each week.

More Ambry Thomas please. That return was no fluke at all and they need to get him in the game in all 3 phases of the game.

No more DPJ on punt returns. He has not improved back there at all. It isn't worth having a few GREAT returns to have the other awful decisions he makes. Literally they could put Greg Mattison back there fielding punts and I'd be happier.

The stupid penalties on defense have to stop. The targeting is unfortunate. There wasn't much he could do at all in that instance. But, our veterans cannot make stupid defensive penalties to keep drives going.

More Chris Evans. I am not sure why he got 4 touches Get him the ball in open space, please.

Happy with Nico, he will be a rock all year.

Shea is gutty. They have to put him in better positions though.

Here are my main offensive gripes...

-Play with some tempo
-Rollout even more
-Better routes
-Creativity
-Play with tempo
-Oh yeah, play with tempo
-Sense of urgency when down DD's in the 4th quarter.


The main thing to take from this game is Wimbush passes opened up his leg game. Notre Dame made a few incredible catches. What can you do, to be honest?

I have many more thoughts but lets start with that. The obvious ones are out there for everyone to discuss.


PS.

I have no problem losing the first game to ND. They are ranked #12 for a reason. They are a solid team, maybe very good. It is the fact that nothing changed offensively for the most part. That is why it was demoralizing. I definitely would have taken a 311-27 type of loss with promises of a changed offense much better. That would be much better than a nail biter vs Appy or USU for instance.
 
Frosh DE Parsons playing at linebacker. Former running back at safety former corner at other safety. Nobodies at d-tackle. D-line missing buchholz. Leaders cabinda and allen gone. Its literally a make-shift defense. I‘d be impressed if they make a 180 in a week

Defense seemed a mess. Very correctable mistakes but you are right, should take time. Year my boys killed them it was same type of shit and then they won the big 10 so who the hell knows. Wont help game is on the road in primetime on national tv for these inexperienced guys to make mistakes but have a hard time believing it gets worse than what i saw last week in the 4th quarter. Plus, that stadium PSU fans will probably take over its not like they walking into 100k screaming fans. Not even close to that.
 
Quick,early prediction this week is something like 34-13.

No way would I lay the inflated number. At all.
Agree, I can't lay it. Feel like only chance would be if Broncos throw up a 3 spot or less. Cant count on that. So frustrating, talent is there, not being used properly. Give me a week with that offense, I'll run hurry up gun all game.
 
Everyone knows that but the coaching staff.

And the way they were "running" their come from behind offense tells me they don't have much in the bag to get that rolling any time soon. The Michigan "hurry up" offense down two scores in a huge game was slower than 80% of the rest of the nations regular base offense.

I don't think WMich can get first downs against them. And based on their rush defense last week, I don't think they can stop Michigan consistently. A lot of three and outs are going to wear them out. Wassink or however you spell his name has minor jiggle compared to Winbush and to be fair the ND pass game was basically throw it up for grabs and win it in the air. I will pay to see WMich succeed that way. Hard to lay those kind of points with Michigan offense.

I made it over to their practice and watched them run a few plays ...

 
I don't know how much filters down to the players, but the Penn State - Pitt rivalry has always been more important to Pitt. They take it more seriously, treat it differently. Pitt feels like Penn State doesn't like playing them, don;t want to give them any opportunity to gain any perception in the state. They feel like "little brother". Narduzzi has been notorious (those words sound weird together) for playing week 1 extra vanilla before the 2016 and 2017 Penn State games. If there was any extra prep in the meetings or on the practice field this spring or summer for any game for Pitt, it would certainly be for this game. For Penn State, it could've been for Ohio St or any Big Ten team, doubtful they would feel the need to spend any extra time on Pitt. Penn State just views this as another game on their schedule. Pitt views it as the game on the schedule. In the final analysis does any of that matter in who wins? Maybe, probably not. Just saying there is a different outlook on this game depending which side you are on.
 
Let me hit some points with Michigan...


The biggest problem is the tackles. That pretty much is killer in any offense. Now, I would love to see the young guys playing instead. They were 'apparently; very neck and neck in fall camp so why not go with the upside? Hey, Notre Dame has a good defense and we knew that coming in so in retrospect if you knew the Tackles would have gotten worse then you absolutely saw most of that coming. Mich says that the same 5 are starting this week. My own personal take there is that either they are lying or they are wishin and hopin they can make improvements the next two weeks.

Now, I do trust this O-line to improve this year. Warriners track record is solid in that regard. In past years, basically the lines would regress but I think we see slight improvement each week.

More Ambry Thomas please. That return was no fluke at all and they need to get him in the game in all 3 phases of the game.

No more DPJ on punt returns. He has not improved back there at all. It isn't worth having a few GREAT returns to have the other awful decisions he makes. Literally they could put Greg Mattison back there fielding punts and I'd be happier.

The stupid penalties on defense have to stop. The targeting is unfortunate. There wasn't much he could do at all in that instance. But, our veterans cannot make stupid defensive penalties to keep drives going.

More Chris Evans. I am not sure why he got 4 touches Get him the ball in open space, please.

Happy with Nico, he will be a rock all year.

Shea is gutty. They have to put him in better positions though.

Here are my main offensive gripes...

-Play with some tempo
-Rollout even more
-Better routes
-Creativity
-Play with tempo
-Oh yeah, play with tempo
-Sense of urgency when down DD's in the 4th quarter.


The main thing to take from this game is Wimbush passes opened up his leg game. Notre Dame made a few incredible catches. What can you do, to be honest?

I have many more thoughts but lets start with that. The obvious ones are out there for everyone to discuss.


PS.

I have no problem losing the first game to ND. They are ranked #12 for a reason. They are a solid team, maybe very good. It is the fact that nothing changed offensively for the most part. That is why it was demoralizing. I definitely would have taken a 311-27 type of loss with promises of a changed offense much better. That would be much better than a nail biter vs Appy or USU for instance.

Guessing you disagree with me but I vote for Dylan Mccaffrey over Shea
 
I may be thinking 16.5 is be too many for Purdue to give Eastern Mich.

We know Eastern Mich has come a long way. Except for Rondale Moore, Purdue O isn't that scary, but maybe he can do enough damage to matter here. Purdue D led the way last year and they are still getting their feet under them this year.

EM D pretty good. The lose their #1 tackler, but all the other key contributors return on D for them. They held UK to 24 last year. Ohio only scored 27 (in OT). Toledo only scored 20, NIU 30. 9 of their 12 games were one possession games.

The biggest question is the EM O and would probably like them to be a little more settled facing a Big Ten D.

I don't know either way, just kind of hit me. EM has been pretty decent for a couple years now. Purdue did beat a good Ohio team 44-21, so maybe that doesn't make the EM side look too appealing. Kind of a sandwich spot for Purdue off the big NW home opener and Mizzou coming to town next week. Brohm and Holt will probably have them up though.
 
Good take there s--k. I think at that current number it makes for a good game to pass on.
 
Was there a preseason line on MSU/ASU?

Just wondering how much MSU's opening game shit fest is influencing this line and whether or not it's an overreaction.

As was mentioned either here on in another thread...MSU tends to play down to their competition.
 
Was there a preseason line on MSU/ASU?

Just wondering how much MSU's opening game shit fest is influencing this line and whether or not it's an overreaction.

As was mentioned either here on in another thread...MSU tends to play down to their competition.

I think it is a double whammy in that respect. ASU with Herm coming in was pretty much thought to be a probably shitshow, particularly early and they came out and looked really well coached, more disciplined than they have been in recent years and completely bought it in to whatever he is selling. And we all know what happened to msu last week.

My question is .. what if MSU isn't that good?
 
Was there a preseason line on MSU/ASU?

Just wondering how much MSU's opening game shit fest is influencing this line and whether or not it's an overreaction.

As was mentioned either here on in another thread...MSU tends to play down to their competition.
Yeah Sparty has a terrible time on those opening Friday games. I don't remember a preseason line.
 
Okay, stand corrected. How did it move at that point?

I didn't track it, but I did print out their GOY release....Miss St was only -2.5, Oklahoma-20.5, Georgia-14.5, Clemson-12.5, Penn St-13, Stanford-4, Cal-4, Mich St-10
 
Sparty is this.....higher the expectations, underachieve.....lower the expectations, overachieve. Its really that simple with them historically. And their coach is a dick who harbors racists and rapists. But Sparty gets away with everything because they are in our state capital and have major political connections.
 
Not shocked by ASU looking good in opener. Isn‘t it fair to think of how they looked after their bye last year (upset Washington). So their players look great when they‘re fresh and have time to prepare
 
Duke at Northwestern. Is everybody passing this game ?No wonder, perhaps. I’m having trouble deciding on a side and as for totals, I’m just a coattailer.
Teams are playing ooc 4th year in a row. NW won 2015 and 2016, Dookies won big last year. Both teams won opener last week. Duke handled Army more comfortably than I thought . ( no bet ) NW got some help from Purdue and controlled the scoreboard. ( I was on NW)
Both teams appear to have competent QBs. I watched neither game. But I suspect that Duke’s defense shown the brighter of the two.
I lean Duke and would welcome support or dissent, and any recommendation on the total. I believe the numbers are 3 and 49.
I know this is a game that most will not play, but I love the B1G and try for action in any game where the points are not up in the clouds
(hello Wisconsin and tOSU)
 
I will say, the 6.5 point move on the total in A2 Saturday is a bit much.

This does bring some options into play.

The under here in general looks solid. Now, if you like a TT under you might be able to get Western u14.5 perhaps. That is one that I would say has a bit of value as well.

We'll see once TT's release this afternoon.
 
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