Good Saturday evening ladies and gentlemen. From Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, it's the #2-ranked Michigan Wolverines (winner of the East Division) hosting the Purdue Boilermakers (winner of the West Division) in the 2022 Big Ten Championship. Kick-off is set for approximately 8:00 pm (Eastern time) with television coverage on FOX network. This is the first appearance for the Boilers and the second for the Wolverines, who defeated Iowa last year.
Michigan is a prohibitive favorite tonight and most likely already in the College Football Playoff regardless of the outcome of this game. A Purdue upset could have the Boilers heading west to Pasadena to play in its third Rose Bowl Game. Otherwise, they could be heading to the State of Florida for the Citrus Bowl. Michigan is coming off an impressive win at Ohio State, while Purdue took care of securing the Old Oaken Bucket again winning at Indiana. Even though the chips fell in a fortunate way for the Boilers to be in this situation, they have a great opportunity here. However, they'll need to play their best game of the season to have any kind of a chance in this game. Even with Blake Corum done for the year with a knee injury, Michigan still has a potent weapon in the backfield with Donovan Edwards, who had 216 yards against the Buckeyes. QB J.J. McCarthy can also stretch the defense and has plenty of potential targets. Purdue will need to corral Edwards and try to force some mistakes in the passing game. They'll definitely need their best tackling game of the season.
On offense, the Boilers will need to keep some balance and hopefully play the possession game - Devin Mockobee needs to be a big part of that - and can perhaps slow down some of Michigan's DL pressure. I'll be interested to see how he can fare. Illinois hurt Michigan with the run game when Chase Brown ran for 140 yards.
Jeff Brohm's teams while unranked have had some success against highly-ranked opponents in the past few years....can they pull off another and secure an unexpected Big Ten Championship? We shall see in a few hours.
Boiler up, my friends.
Michigan is a prohibitive favorite tonight and most likely already in the College Football Playoff regardless of the outcome of this game. A Purdue upset could have the Boilers heading west to Pasadena to play in its third Rose Bowl Game. Otherwise, they could be heading to the State of Florida for the Citrus Bowl. Michigan is coming off an impressive win at Ohio State, while Purdue took care of securing the Old Oaken Bucket again winning at Indiana. Even though the chips fell in a fortunate way for the Boilers to be in this situation, they have a great opportunity here. However, they'll need to play their best game of the season to have any kind of a chance in this game. Even with Blake Corum done for the year with a knee injury, Michigan still has a potent weapon in the backfield with Donovan Edwards, who had 216 yards against the Buckeyes. QB J.J. McCarthy can also stretch the defense and has plenty of potential targets. Purdue will need to corral Edwards and try to force some mistakes in the passing game. They'll definitely need their best tackling game of the season.
On offense, the Boilers will need to keep some balance and hopefully play the possession game - Devin Mockobee needs to be a big part of that - and can perhaps slow down some of Michigan's DL pressure. I'll be interested to see how he can fare. Illinois hurt Michigan with the run game when Chase Brown ran for 140 yards.
Jeff Brohm's teams while unranked have had some success against highly-ranked opponents in the past few years....can they pull off another and secure an unexpected Big Ten Championship? We shall see in a few hours.
Boiler up, my friends.
