Sadly you already missed one victor. “You don’t find guys like that”.
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“Big game, championship game for our team”, MI coach Jim Harbaugh said.
The unit has been exceptional on third-down defense, allowing 10 of 82 opportunities (a national-low 12.2 percent) to be converted. They’ve settle into a groove where they’ll have one NCAA tournament caliber team, and another one or two teams kind of on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but usually on the wrong side. The Wolverines have superior players at so many positions and controlled every aspect of the game.
The biggest games with respect to the East race this weekend are Ohio State at Penn State and Michigan State at Maryland.
The Cornhuskers (7-0, 4-0 Big Ten) probably didn’t convince the skeptics who say they aren’t worthy of a top-10 ranking, but they’ll head to No. 10 Wisconsin next week with their best record since 2001. It won’t be pretty, but Wisconsin wins in Iowa City for the fourth straight time.
“This style in particular is a tip of the cap, a nod to Woody Hayes, to Michael Douglas in the movie “Falling Down” and also a tip of the cap to Malcolm X”, Harbaugh said Saturday night.
He’s the go-to man in khakis and is right proud of it.
Regardless of who’s at quarterback, the Illini offense will be operating against a MI defense that has been punishing its opponents.
IL has two things going for it heading into Saturday afternoon’s matchup with MI. College football is weird sometimes. The Terrapins amassed 447 total yards of offense against the Spartans.
Higdon led the way for the running backs, finishing the game with 106 yards and one touchdown.
Next week Northwestern comes to Columbus, so they’ll want to head into the showdown with the Buckeyes on a high note.
Michigan: The Wolverines play at Michigan State, a game they’ve been looking forward to since a botched punt led to a stunning loss a year ago.
Fourth-year junior Conor Rhoda, who had played in three games in his career, managed the offense smartly and functioned without a turnover in his first college start. We know the task in front of us. Following the Auburn loss, head coach Les Miles was sacked.
Butt had the last and best shot to change the outcome a year ago.
Where the Nittany Lions have had problems is on defense, where they’re allowing 28.5 points a game and rank close to the bottom of the Big Ten at stopping the run. More specifically, Corey Clement is healthy again after an ankle injury early in the season.
This might seem a little insane but I do like Purdue to cover this week. “If anything, it’ll motivate us a little bit more this week”. It helps us so much and makes our jobs so much easier. The five turnovers IL forced in last Saturday’s win over Rutgers were a big difference in the game.
Michigan State’s 27-23 victory was its third straight in the series and seventh win in eight games since Michigan’s last win at Spartan Stadium in 2007.
But after halftime, the Northwestern offense struggled to replicate its first-half success against a much-improved IN defense.
MI is better than IL in every way as a football team.
Last week: beat Michigan State 54-40. “Just getting the right spot – I mean, that is reviewable”. Urban Meyer will now try to keep this group focused and back to winning football games.
The defense really played better in the second half as well. “I think in a lot of our minds, we thought ‘Hey, there’s only nine seconds for him to punt the ball off”.
I was off on my Ohio State pick last week, but in the end I’m just happy they found a way to get the win in Madison. Until this program losses, they will stay one step behind MI, but could play their way into playoff contention with wins on the road over the next two Saturday’s. They are projected to lose against their top-10 counterparts and Penn State.
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“Each and every day if our scout team catches a ball on us in our one-on-ones, not only do the coaches get mad at us, but the DBs get mad as well”. A good chunk of Wisconsin’s rushing yards came on the jet sweep as well. I know this well because I played defensive back there. His players said they are never surprised by the new and interesting things their coach does, but they were impressed with his choice.
