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Last week, I thought it was free money.
Picking Arizona State to cover a 14-point spread at Michigan State seemed too easy. I wasn’t just basing that off the fact that the Sun Devils won the first matchup in Tempe last year, though it didn’t hurt.
I based that off the belief that in regular season games vs. Power 5 teams in the time after the Playoff run in 2015, there were only 2 teams who MSU beat by more than 14 points — Maryland and Rutgers. So an MSU team that hadn’t hit 15 points against a Power 5 team since Nov. 3, 2018 was going to … beat Arizona State by 14?
Nope. Free money.
Yet there were plenty of people in this business, including some people who pick games on TV every Saturday morning, who believed MSU would cover with ease. Why? Well, apparently scoring 51 points against Western Michigan was supposed to matter? Yeah, no thanks.
So you’ll understand why I looked at that Michigan State-Northwestern spread and had another thought — free money. It makes zero sense to me why MSU is a 9-point favorite to win in Evanston.
That’s a week removed from MSU looking like reaching double digits was going to take an eternity. The Spartans are riding a streak of 5 straight games with 14 or less points vs. Power 5 teams (dating back to that Nov. 3 game last year). Oh, and in 4 of those games, MSU was held to single digits, including that barnburner last weekend.
Imagine looking at that and thinking “they’ll easily win by 10.”
I haven’t even got to the part when I reminded you that MSU lost 3 straight to Northwestern yet.
On second thought, let’s just dig into that right now.
You see, I’m a believer that while teams can change, coach vs. coach trends are noteworthy. During that aforementioned post-Playoff stretch, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster for MSU. The one constant? Losing to Northwestern (and Ohio State) on a yearly basis. Twice, Northwestern went up to East Lansing and won by double digits.
To the surprise of no one, Northwestern was an underdog all 3 times and it won outright. That included last year when Northwestern was a 10.5-point underdog. That’s why this matchup isn’t a “what does Vegas know that I don’t?” sort of deal.
So what am I not getting here? Yeah, Northwestern’s offense is a major question mark so far, but even if it literally just stayed home, are we sure MSU is hitting double digits? I wouldn’t bet the house on that happening.
Maybe the fact that MSU reached higher levels of success this decade has something to do with it? Well, it shouldn’t.
In the last 3 years since that streak began, Northwestern has been the more successful program:
[table “” not found /]Oh, it’s all because Northwestern plays in the B1G West and MSU plays in the B1G East? During that stretch, MSU went 3-6 (.333) against the West. Northwestern, on the other hand, went 14-4 against the West.
So any argument that recent history favors MSU makes zero sense.
I just can’t wrap my head around why it’s such a lopsided line in favor of the Spartans. Again. Is Le’Veon Bell making a pitstop in Evanston this weekend that I don’t know about? Is Nick Saban coming back to MSU to coach in some one-game special that I wasn’t aware of?
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. And again, I can’t emphasize this enough. Even if we think that the loaded MSU defense is going to harass Hunter Johnson, there’s not anything on the other side of the ball that suggests the Spartans are ready to win convincingly against a decent Power 5 team.
MSU’s offense is undisciplined (only 6 Power 5 teams average more penalty yards per game), inefficient throwing the ball (only 5 Power 5 teams average fewer yards per attempt) and just downright maddening to watch.
The over/under for this game (37.5) makes much more sense than the spread itself. The original over/under came down 2.5 points, which was expected when gamblers looked at how bad both of these offenses have been so far. But a line that opened at MSU -8 has since gone up to -9. Apparently the betting public still likes MSU for some reason. That, I can’t understand.
Then again, I’m the same person who didn’t understand why Maryland was favored against Syracuse and we all saw how that turned out.
This, however, feels different. We’ve got a bigger sample size, and we’ve got 3 years of pro-Northwestern results that suggest Fitzgerald’s staff knows a thing or two about how to out-coach MSU.
Maybe this year will be different. Maybe last week’s debacle against Arizona State yielded the practice week the Spartans needed to figure things out offensively.
I sure as heck wouldn’t bet on it, though. I’d rather take the free money.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.