2016 Big Ten Football Pick of the Week – Week # 2

 

 

 

Pick of the Week

Penn State at Pittsburgh (-5) – Saturday at Noon

Pittsburgh and Penn State have met 96 times in the rich history of this rivalry. However, the two teams haven’t met in 16 seasons. That hiatus will come to an end this Saturday when they meet at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After last season’s stunning loss to in-state rival Temple, the pressure is on PSU head coach James Franklin to knock off second-year head coach Pat Narduzzi and the Pitt Panthers. While PSU certainly wasn’t bad on Saturday against Kent State, I wasn’t entirely convinced and I’m going with the home favorites (-5), Pittsburgh.

While it would be foolish to make any definitive conclusions after only 60 minutes of football, I feel confident in saying that Penn State’s offensive line is still not great. In fact, the line may still be much closer to a weakness than an average unit. The pass blocking was mostly okay (although they did give up one sack/fumble that led directly to a Kent State touchdown) but the run blocking made Saquon Barkley work incredibly hard for his yards.

QB Trace McSorley was alright but I thought he underthrew a number of deep balls, something Pat Narduzzi’s Panthers will make him pay for, and his decision-making was less-than-stellar on a couple of read option plays. Penn State’s defense performed well but Kent State, not a good offensive unit, moved the ball respectably and could have put a couple of touchdowns on the board if not for sloppy turnovers.

Bottom line, week one’s performance for Penn State was, in a word, just fine. The same could be said for Pittsburgh’s performance against Villanova. They held FCS opponent Villanova to 172 yards and only allowed 1.6 yards per carry on 33 rushing attempts. However, their offense was far from pretty, only gaining 261 yards and converting only six of 15 third-down opportunities.

The matchup to watch is going to be, as it so often is, in the trenches. The defensive line for both squads is considered a strength and both Penn State and Pittsburgh will fancy themselves to be able to stop the other team’s rushing game and grind their offense to a sputtering halt.

My pick of Pittsburgh is based on my belief that the Panthers will dominate Penn State’s offensive line and force someone other than Saquon Barkley to beat them. Does Penn State have any other running backs they trust to carry the ball consistently? If not, Barkley will be pretty worn down by the end of this one.

I like James Conner, Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall to have better days than they did against Villanova and Scott Orndoff offered promise as a target in the passing game. I think this will be a fairly low-scoring game where the winner doesn’t exceed 28 points but I like Pitt’s lines better than PSU’s and I’ll take the Panthers, at home, to win by a touchdown.

 

 

ATS Upset Pick

Akron (+24.5) at Wisconsin – Saturday at 3:30

I’ll begin by saying that I was very, very wrong on the Wisconsin Badgers and their week one battle against LSU. I thought the Tigers would overwhelm the Badgers, control the lines of scrimmage and eventually pull away for a comfortable victory.

Instead, Wisconsin was the much more physical team and they deserved their 16-14 win. Now, they’ll return to Madison as heroes and they ‘ll spend the week hearing about how great they were on Saturday and, I believe, they are due for an inevitable “letdown” against the lowly Akron Zips. Terry Bowden’s Zips went 8-5 a year ago and they knocked off Utah State in the Potato Bowl.

Returning quarterback Thomas Woodson lit up VMI in week one, throwing for 407 yards and six touchdowns as Akron put up 576 yards of offense, nearly 200 more than VMI. Warren Ball wasn’t expected to be a huge contributor but he surprised by coming up with 18 carries for 110 yards and a touchdown. Transfer JoJo Natson lived up to the hype surrounding him as he caught three touchdowns. Jerome Lane added another two scores and had nearly 200 yards receiving.

In short, Akron’s offense looked really good in week one and they have an experienced quarterback that could give the Badgers trouble if they don’t come with the same intensity we saw in week one at Lambeau Field.

The biggest concern in taking Akron is that they may be overwhelmed by Wisconsin’s physicality. However, they did a stellar job defending the run against the Keydets, limiting them to only 86 yards on 45 carries (1.9 yards per carry). VMI’s Al Cobb had a nice day throwing the ball and Bart Houston should be able to find some operating room against Akron’s rebuilt secondary but the Zips were very good against the run in 2015 and it appears they should be once again in 2016.

A combination of the “letdown” factor, Akron’s passing game and their ability to at least provide some resistance against the run game should have this game played much closer than the 24.5 point spread indicates. Wisconsin should prevail without too much of a problem but take the Zips as heavy underdogs to cover the spread.

 

Things to Watch

It’s a bit early for a “trending up/trending down” section since we only have one week of data to work with. That section will be added back to this column prior to next week’s games. For now, here are a couple of things to keep an eye on in week two’s Big Ten action. 

• Ohio State was supposed to take some time to gel. It was supposed to take at least a few weeks until all of their new starters and contributors got up to speed and began to play up to potential. The Buckeyes did not get the memo. They scored ten offensive touchdowns and had a school-record 776 yards of offense. 776 yards! The defense only surrendered three points (BG’s touchdown came on a pick-six) but it was J.T. Barrett’s seven touchdowns that stole the show. In addition, Mike Weber had 136 yards on 19 carries and playmaker Curtis Samuel appears ready for a star-turn. The Buckeyes play Tulsa before travelling to Norman to play the wounded Sooners.

• I’ve written a couple of times that taking the under in IU games, something that has been akin to lighting your money on fire and chuckling as it burns, is a good idea early in 2016. The Hoosiers held FIU to 13 points and went well under the posted total as they ran the ball 52 times and only attempted 28 passes. IU’s defense looked much improved under new DC Tom Allen and the offense appeared content to control the ball and pound away with a large stable of running backs. They take on in-state foe Ball State this week and the over/under is currently posted at 64.5. I think it’s wise to take the under once again.