Michigan at Iowa Line

Written by Steve Janus

The No. 15 Michigan Wolverines are set to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in a Big Ten clash at Kinnick Stadium. The Wolverines improved to 7-1 overall and 3-1 inside the Big Ten with an impressive 36-14 win over Purdue this past Saturday. Things didn’t go so well for the Hawkeyes. Iowa dropped to 5-3 overall and 2-2 inside the conference with a disappointing 21-22 loss at Minnesota. Iowa has won two straight in the series, including a 38-28 win at Michigan a season ago.

Taking a look at the week 10 college football spreads, oddsmakers currently have Michigan favored by 4-points over the Hawkeyes with the total set at 57 points.

Michigan Wolverines:

A lot of people wondered how the Wolverines would respond after suffering their first loss of the season against Michigan State. Michigan answered that question with no problem, dominating the Boilermakers right from the start. The Wolverines jumped out to a 22-7 halftime lead and would go up by as many as 29 before allowing Purdue to score a garbage touchdown with 15 seconds left in the 4th quarter.

The most impressive thing about the Wolverines easy win over Purdue was they did so without a huge game from quarterback Denard Robinson. The junior threw for just 170 yards with no touchdowns and one interception and had just 63 yards on the ground Robinson did score a touchdown on a 2-yard run, but it was no where near the type of performance we are use to seeing from their star quarterback.

Sophomore running back Fitzgerald Toussaint was the star offensively against the Boilermakers, rushing for a career-high 170 yards with two touchdowns. It was a rare big game for the sophomore back, as his only other 100-yard performance came against Minnesota (108 yards).

Robinson and the rest of the Michigan offense figures to be in for a big day against what has turned out to be a poor Iowa defense. The Hawkeyes come in giving up 23.1 points and just over 402 yards of total offense a game. Iowa has been especially bad against the run, allowing no fewer than 153 yards in conference play. Last year the Wolverines piled on 522 yards of total offense against an Iowa defense that allowed just 17 points and 332 yards a game.

Iowa Hawkeyes:

It’s hard to explain what happened to the Hawkeyes last week. Minnesota had lost their first three Big Ten games by a combined 113 points, including a 59-0 beating at Michigan. It wasn’t as if the Hawkeyes didn’t have their chances to put this game away. Iowa outgained the Golden Gophers 446 to 371 in total yards.

The most surprising stat for Iowa was they managed to score just 21 points despite getting a 252 yards and two touchdowns from running back Marcus Coker. It was the fewest points the Hawkeyes scored all season outside of a 3-13 loss at Penn State.

Junior quarterback James Vandenberg went 16 of 24 for 177 yards and a touchdown, but really looked out of rhythm the entire game. Vandenberg had thrown for 477 yards and six touchdowns in the Hawkeyes two previous games against Northwestern and Penn State.

With a defense that doesn’t seem to be able to stop anyone from putting points on the board, Iowa is going to need their offense to play a lot better if they are going to beat the Wolverines this Saturday. The Michigan defense has really made some nice progress under first year head coach Brady Hoke. After allowing 35.2 points and 451 yards of total offense a game in 2010, Michigan comes into this game giving up just 14.6 points and 332.9 total yards on average. However, the Wolverines did allow 513 yards in a 35-31 win over Notre Dame and 438 yards in a 42-24 win over Northwestern.

Betting Trends:

Michigan is 7-18 ATS in their last 25 games as a road favorite of 3.5-10.0.

Iowa is 31-12-1 ATS in their last 44 games following a S.U. loss.

Be sure to stop back and check out who Steve Janus has picked to win this week in college football.

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