At long last, the 2019 college football season is here! Each week, I will be poring over the lines for all games involving Big Ten teams and giving analysis and my favorite picks. There are no conference games in week one so we have a big slate of contests to choose from: Wisconsin (-13.5) at South Florida, Tulsa at Michigan State (-22.5), Massachusetts at Rutgers (-11), Purdue (-10) at Nevada, Florida Atlantic at Ohio State (-26.5), South Alabama at Nebraska (-36), Akron at Illinois (-15), Ball State at Indiana (-16.5), Northwestern (+6.5) at Stanford, Middle Tennessee at Michigan (33.5), Miami (OH) at Iowa (-21.5), Howard at Maryland does not have a line

Wisconsin at South Florida (+13.5) – Friday, 7:00 on ESPN

The Wisconsin Badgers were only 4-9 against the spread in 2018 and they open the season with a trip to steamy South Florida that I think will be closer than expected. The Badgers will be trotting out a new quarterback and a defense that has a lot of questions to answer. Meanwhile, South Florida brings back 15 starters as well as a healthy Blake Barnett at quarterback. I think the humidity and heat of Florida in late August is going to be an issue for the Badgers and they will likely try to slow this game down and pound the Bulls with the running game. While I think they will have a lot of success running, I am confident that South Florida will be able to score enough to hang around and cover this spread. The Badgers will win but I don’t think it will be by double-digits. Give me USF to cover.

Akron at Illinois (-17) – Saturday, Noon on BTN

This could backfire as I am taking Illinois to cover a spread of more than two touchdowns but I think the Illini are going to be better than people think and I am projecting Akron to be one of the worst teams in the MAC. Brandon Peters, a transfer from Michigan, was named the starter for Illinois and I think he can be solid but I really like Reggie Corbin and the Illinois run game in this contest. Akron has a new head coach (Tom Arth) and they return only three defensive starters from a season ago. Their offense also has a ton of questions to answer and they scored seven points or fewer in three of the last four games of 2018. I expect the Illini to give some snaps to electric freshman Isaiah “Juice” Williams and he will provide some problems to the Zips defense. My expectation is for Reggie Corbin, Mike Epstein and Ra’Von Bonner to combine for more than 250 yards on the ground and the Illini to win this game by 20+.

Tulsa at Michigan State – UNDER 47.5 – Friday, 7:00 pm on FS1

The Michigan State Spartans should have one of the country’s best defenses. The issue recently has come on offense. The Green and White have struggled mightily to score as Brian Lewerke was injured and lacked any type of confidence as his play sputtered. The offensive line failed to open up much for the running game and they ended up scoring 14 points or fewer in five of their final seven contests of 2018. In fact, MSU was a terrific under play last season, going under the posted total in each of their last eight games (each of them by more than 10 points below the total!). Tulsa is not expected to be much of a challenge for Sparty but I don’t trust this offense to create a ton of distance and betting on MSU to cover a spread of more than three touchdowns is dicey. I am confident though that Joe Bachie, Kenny Willekes and the Spartan defense will keep Tulsa’s pedestrian offense at a low total. If the Golden Hurricane can only muster around 14 to 17 points, MSU would need to score in the mid-30s to go over this total. Michigan State’s offense might be able to do that but I am going to keep betting the under with the Spartans until they prove me wrong.