Week 5 Big Ten picks

[Travis Miller]

Here are our Big Ten picks for Week 5

BoilerUpload - Week 5 Big Ten Picks

There are two non-conference games this week, plus a lot of double-digit favorites.

purdue.rivals.com

 

[rgarlitz]

I'm not feeling great about this week.

Penn State 49, Northwestern 17 --- Back to reality for Northwestern. This is a mismatch on every level.

Louisiana 21, Minnesota 19 --- ordinarily I'd pick the boat rowers to handle business in a rebound from last week's meltdown. But, this is the B1G West, and I've learned to expect disappointment.

Michigan 27, Nebraska 24 --- The Huskers will look plucky at home --- until shooting themselves in the foot down the stretch.

Maryland 31, Indiana 13 --- Maryland is better and at home.

Rutgers a lot, Wagner much less

Illinois 26 @ Purdue 24 --- I have a bad feeling about this, in part because Purdue has not executed well the past two weeks but also because Purdue has had Illinois's number in recent years. Hope I'm wrong. Illinois isn't exactly lighting the season on fire.

Iowa 24, MSU 10 --- Iowa's offense tops last week's production by the early 2nd quarter in a home rebound against a reeling MSU team.

 

[rgarlitz]

Northwestern looked better than expected for 3 quarters. That's no guaranteed win.

Minnesota pulled it out---not exactly a shocker. Of course, a loss wouldn't have been shocking, either.

I really thought Nebraska would rise to the occasion and make it a competitive game. Instead, Michigan utterly dominated from start to finish. Let's be honest: Nebraska has become a middle-of-the-pack B1G program with an overly zealous fan base.

Maryland hasn't gotten much buzz, even among their own fans--16,000 unsold tickets yesterday! But that's an impressive, athletic team.

Rutgers did what a B1G team should do to an mid-level FCS opponent.

Purdue--what can I say, I was WAAAAAYYYYYY off. Solid progress. Glad to see it.

Iowa v. MSU--- about what I thought. Didn't count on McNamara going down, but that Hawkeye defense covers up a lot of offensive deficiencies.