Traditional Big 10 Grind-It-Out Affair (Erik Scheponik)
About half of the teams in the Big 10 still play defense, and these are two of them. Joe Paterno often likes to let his opponent make the first mistake in big games staying conservative until that point. That strategy had netted a 9-17-2 UNDER mark recently Big 10 action His offense is really struggling right now, as they weren’t only shut down by Michigan, but they were held to 24 offensive points and 295 yards by a Notre Dame team that everyone is lighting up. I think he’ll let his fine defense and punting team do the work today in Champagne early on. They want to throw it more and get the ball to playmakers like Derrick Williams, but things just aren’t clicking on that side of the ball. I watched Anthony Morelli for a few years now, and for some reason he remains hesitant in this offense, despite the cannon he possesses for an arm. These two teams played to a 26-12 PSU win in Happy Valley last year, in a game that featured 2 PSU non-offensive TD’s (546 total yards, many in the 4thQ by Illinois), and with both teams preference for running the ball, I expect the clock to be our friend. Under may be worth a look at key number 44 or higher.
Kicked off the weekend with a nice outright winner on South Florida last night, and today, besides the above total, I have 3 strong selections kicking off at 3:30—two more dogs and one other total— available at the Capper’s Gallery. Documented 59% CFB, the last 2+ seasons, and would love to have you on board!
Update on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 by
Erik Scheponik
Well, the defenses allowed only 9 pts. over the last 39 minutes of this game, but early big plays killed us in this one, as the score was 21-17 21 minutes into the game. Penn St. had no answer for Illinois’ option attack and the Illinois DB’s made a couple really bad plays on balls which led to big gains in the 1st Q for the PSU passing attack. There was also a 90 yd. KO return in the 1st Q by the Illini.
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