I remember when I looked at the Week 3 slate over the summer. I circled Sept. 17 on the calendar and said the obvious.

Week 3 is HUGE for the B1G.

You’ve got Nebraska-Oregon, Michigan State-Notre Dame and Ohio State-Oklahoma. All three of those are headliner matchups that could boost the B1G’s playoff chances.

Admittedly, I figured that the B1G could be underdogs in all three games. After all, Nebraska was coming off a five-win regular season and Oregon was still loaded with talent. MSU was still an inexperienced group playing a good Notre Dame team on the road. And Ohio State was the least-experienced team in the country while Oklahoma was a preseason top-five team.

But to my surprise, Vegas likes the B1G in two of those three matchups. Maybe that’s because Nebraska and Ohio State have both been dominant to start the season. Or maybe its because their massive fanbases are betting the house that they’ll win statement games.

Whatever the case, those games are expected to be wire-to-wire battles. A couple of the B1G’s best are expected to roll. Michigan and Wisconsin are favored by 20 and 34.5 points, respectively, while Iowa is taking on FCS power North Dakota State (they aren’t taking them lightly).

Among the surprises in the updated Vegas Insider spreads are Illinois and Northwestern. Illinois is a three-point dog at home to Western Michigan while Northwestern, which lost to WMU, is a four-point favorite against Duke.

Here are all the B1G spreads for Week 3:

  • Western Michigan (-3) vs. Illinois
  • Temple vs. Penn State (-9)
  • Maryland (-8.5) vs. UCF
  • Colorado vs. No. 4 Michigan (-20)
  • New Mexico vs. Rutgers (-5.5)
  • Georgia State vs. No. 9 Wisconsin (-34.5)
  • No. 22 Oregon vs. Nebraska (-3)
  • No. 12 Michigan State vs. No. 18 Notre Dame (-8)
  • Duke vs. Northwestern (-4)
  • No. 3 Ohio State (-1.5) vs. No. 14 Oklahoma

N/A

  • North Dakota State vs. Iowa