SPREAD AWARENESS WEEK 1: BETTING ON THE B1G TEN

Week 0 has officially come and gone and much like last year, it was highlighted by Nebraska doing something so dumb to cost themselves a win. Sad!

Before we get into the bets, I would just like to say that this is my fourth year writing Spread Awareness for GIA (I have no idea why they keep letting me back on here). Over the last three seasons, we have gone 217-194-7 with our regular season picks. Not bad! We have gotten better each year, so I can only assume that if you listen to the picks this season you will be a millionaire by November (DISCLAIMER: YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NOT BE A MILLIONAIRE BY NOVEMBER).

This week we get to watch college football on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so I hope you all have excuses prepared for why you can’t do anything to help around the house. For me? Well, my back has been PRETTY sore lately and it is a real shame that I woke up and it completely went out leaving me incapable of moving for the next three days…We play chess here at Spread Awareness, not checkers**.

If you are new here, we pick a new song every week that sets the mood for the picks. Sometimes it is happy, sometimes sad, sometimes it is Taylor Swift. If you want to check out the Spread Awareness official playlist, it is on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26mMnINOzKkezCdI6IUr2k?si=675ab3fa29424c46

*I have no idea how to play chess and very much enjoy playing checkers.

BIG TEN GAMES OF THE WEEK OF THE CENTURY

Penn State -3.5 @ Purdue (Thursday, 7:00 PM CST, FOX)

Right out of the gate we get to see if Purdue is actually going to be good like everyone keeps saying, or if they are going to be like 2021 Iowa State where during the preseason everyone talked about how it was the greatest team they ever had and then they were actually pretty bad. I am willing to bet that they will not be great (check out SPREAD AWARENESS: WEEK 0 to see our win total predictions). Replacing David Bell with former Iowa receivers Charlie Jones and Tyrone Tracy doesn’t seem like it should work, but who knows? Not a knock on those guys, it's just David Bell was very, very good.

Penn State gets Sean Clifford back for his 9th year and I gotta be honest, I think this is finally the year he figures it all out. He is 34 years old now, his brain is fully developed, and he might finally be recovered from the ass-kicking Iowa gave him last season. An ass-kicking so bad that it basically derailed Penn State’s season.

Like I said, I don’t think Purdue will be as good as everyone is saying. Will they beat Iowa? Probably. Sorry to say that, but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and set expectations early on. Give me Penn State and the wily old veteran at QB.

PICK: Penn State -3.5

New Mexico State -36.5 @ Minnesota (Thursday, 8:00 PM CST, BTN)

Jerry Kill returns to Minnesota! I think there is some bad blood there between him and Fleck but I am not 100% sure about that and as always, I will not fact-check it. That is a promise. Let’s just assume there is because it makes this game mildly more interesting.

I watched New Mexico State play football in Week 0. It was a miserable game to watch and they are going to have issues with everything Minnesota does. Mo Ibrahim may run for 1,000 yards Thursday night. It is a big spread, but I think Minnesota runs up the score.

PICK: Minnesota -36.5, OVER 52.5

Western Michigan +22.5 @ #15 Michigan State (Friday, 6:00 PM CST, ESPN)

Michigan State surprised everyone last year, riding on the back of Kenneth Walker to an 11-win season. Can they do it again this year or was last year a fluke? These are the questions you come running to Spread Awareness for to see the answer and I am here to tell you that I DO NOT KNOW. They could be good again! They could be just okay! They could very well not be good!

Western Michigan keeps this close enough and covers, which is basically a win for the MAC.

PICK: Western Michigan +22.5

Illinois +2 @ Indiana (Friday, 7:00 PM CST, FS1)

Bert and the Illini looked pretty average for most of their Week 0 contest against Wyoming, but I think average is all it will take for teams to beat Indiana this season.

PICK: Illinois +2

Buffalo +24.5 vs Maryland

Remember last year when everyone thought Maryland was going to be good and was predicting they would kill Iowa? Remember there was one shining light who said that was dumb and that Iowa was going to win by 40? Who was that? Oh yeah, that was us! Never a doubt!

ANYWAY, want to talk about a game that I absolutely do not care about? This is it! As a big MAC guy, I can tell you that Buffalo won't be winning the MACtion title this year, but a 24.5-point dog to Maryland??? That is just disrespectful. Give me the Bulls!

PICK:  Buffalo +24.5

Rutgers +7 @ Boston College (Saturday, 11:00 AM CST, ACCN)

Boy, this game might be even less exciting than Buffalo vs Maryland. If I wasn’t contractually obligated to make a pick, I would tell you to do something else with your life, but I guess we will start the year by doing what we are sworn to do: bet against Rutgers.

PICK: Boston College -7

SDSU+15.5 @ Iowa (Saturday, 11:00 AM CST, FS1)

IT IS FINALLY HERE. HAWKEYE FOOTBALL. Is this the year we win the Big Ten Title and make the College Football Playoff? YES, IT IS. Maybe. I don’t know. It could be. Whatever, don’t rain on my parade.

A lot of questions about the offense coming into the season, and for good reason. We lost the best center in college football, our receivers have decided Purdue is a better place to play, Tyler Goodson is gone (I am so sad about this), and Spencer Petras is still our starting QB. It should be noted that he worked with the Mannings in the offseason, though, so maybe they transferred their QB ability to him via osmosis? IDK let's hope so.

As for the defense, well, it's going to be nasty. I can’t tell you how nice it is going from season to season knowing at least one side of the ball is going to be good, some may say great. A lot of big-time players on the D and I fully expect this to be the best defense in the Big Ten. Now, the question is can the offense do ANYTHING, literally, anything, to help them win football games? I am talking like, IDK, maybe two touchdowns a game? Is that too much to ask??? Yes? Oh, okay then.

Well, even if the offense is awful again, we still have Tory Taylor, who will win the Ray Guy Award, which is a Spread Awareness LOCK OF THE CENTURY.

The Hawks roll in this one, 28-0, putting up their first of, let’s say, nine shutouts.

PICK: Iowa -15.5, UNDER 44.5

Colorado State +30.5 @ #8 Michigan (Saturday, 11:00 AM CST, ABC)

The defending Big Ten Champs take on CSU and their newest coach, Jay Norvell. Michigan is doing something interesting, announcing a different starting QB for their first and second games. Is this normal? No. Does Jim Harbaugh ever do anything normal? No.

Norvell may make CSU a respectable program eventually, but he has A LOT of work to do with a team that hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2017. Michigan is replacing a lot of talent, especially on the defensive side of the ball. I am sure they will be very good this year, and last week I said there is a decent chance they only have one loss going into their game with Ohio State (Hawks by a million, obviously). Harbaugh is a weirdo, but he has things rolling at Michigan after some really rough years. They win this one BIG.

PICK: Michigan -30.5

North Dakota +21.5 @ Nebraska (Saturday, 2:30 PM CST, BTN)

I mean…Nebraska....what the hell was that onside kick? The only explanation I have is that Frost was jealous that Whipple had the offense moving and scoring while he was just standing on the sideline counting how many times his team puked. He needed to do SOMETHING so people would talk about how great he is, so he called an onside kick thinking he would be a hero again when it worked. Unfortunately, it is Nebraska and their special teams players can barely tie their own shoes. Also, why did Nebraska not schedule a bye the week after playing in Ireland? Seems like that would have been the smart move???

Much like Nebraska, North Dakota spent the 2021 season losing close games. Outside of one blowout, their five other losses were by one score. Will they be able to keep it close with Nebraska? Probably not, but if they can just not do dumb stuff for four quarters there is always a chance Nebraska will do something to make the game close.

I think Nebraska will win this one big, Frost needs to run the score up whenever possible to try and save his job. They have two chances to do that, this week and next.

PICK: NEBRASKA -21.5, OVER 48.5

Illinois State +33.5 @ #18 Wisconsin (Saturday, 6:00 PM CST, FS1)

Do you care about this game? I don’t. Wisconsin will win by 50 and rush for 600 yards. Yay Week 1!!

Pick: Wisconsin -33.5

#5 Notre Dame +17.5 @ #2 Ohio State (Saturday, 6:30 PM CST, ABC)

The biggest game of the week and we have a 17.5-point spread…oof. New ND head coach Marcus Freeman said he didn’t know the spread was that high, which seems like a lie. It’s 2022, no chance you can avoid hearing that your team, ranked #5 in the country, is a three-score underdog in the opener. Freeman is a former Buckeye, which adds a little intrigue to the game. He knows what it is like in the 'Shoe at night, but I am not sure if that will help his team at all.

Why? Because Ohio State is good. National Championship good. If their new defensive coordinator can get things figured out quickly, they should cruise through their schedule and win the Big Ten on the arm of their soon-to-be Heisman-winning QB CJ Stroud.

As much as I like Ohio State, though, I just can’t take a team to cover 17.5 points in Week 1 against another Top 5 team. It seems wrong. It feels dirty. I won’t do it. This is literally one of like three good games to open the season and I didn’t wait months and months for football to come back just to spend Saturday night watching a team get blown out.

PICK: Notre Dame +17.5