State's a favorite because Michigan is running very hot, and MSU has been running bad. The teams are probably very close talent wise at the moment (I don't want to admit this as a Michigan fan, and it won't be the case for long, but we've often rotating anywhere from 1 to 3 walk-ons out there on the defensive side of the ball. It's a young team). Not to mention that our offensive line is banged up and Molk is out, and our QBs are still freshman about to have their first road game.

There's a case to be made -- a very strong one -- that State may have "outperformed" Michigan this year too, especially the last three weeks, when Sparty was mostly on the road while Michigan was at home -- Sparty outgained ND by 30 yards @ ND while ND outgained Michigan by ~50 yards @ Michigan. Sparty outgained Wisconsin by 50 yards @ Wisconsin while we got outgained by IU (a far inferior team to Wisconsin) by almost 100 yards at home. Keep in mind we almost gave up 500 yards to IU.

So, honestly, most non-results orientated indicators look like Sparty is probably the better performing team up until now. I've waffled back and forth but I don't think Sparty being a slight favorite at all is that wacky, and it might have been the reality even if Forcier appeared 100% healthy.

Our defense is just way too thin for us to be able to walk into a road game and be favored over any non-crappy, non-mediocre Big Ten team, and Sparty is better than their record indicates.

soooo, your first post back itt, and you're back on me, huh? must've been thinking about that a lot the last few days.

how about we change 'bandwagon', to 'frontrunner'...that better?

anyhow, i don't really give two ****s about you. it just bugs me that you root for the same team i do. which is something that has been echoed by quite a few um/tigazzzs fans.

go blue.

p.s. you're not going to honor the whole, 'i won't post in the UM thread anymore' comment, huh?

Good post Dvaut. I think we're all gonna find out what this Michigan team is made of these next two weeks. What's your final score prediction?

Michigan 42 - MSU 38? Something like that. I don't know.

17-14 michigan just to be different

Only predictions involving MSU winning can be deemed ******ed.

I'm hoping for a game like '04 except the role of Braylon Edwards will either be played by Junior Hemingway or Brown/Minor.

I'm surprised that the over/under is below 60... feels like a tarp to me... which means to definitely bet the under

looking at rain starting this evening all the way through tomorrow evening

the hour-by-hour shows 50-60% chance of precipitation straight through

Wouldn't that help us out considering the relative strengths of the passing vs running games for each team?

You would think so, but since I can't remember the last time Michigan successfully defended a pass of less than 10 yards, maybe not so much.

I think rain really favors Michigan.

If it rains hard enough, the threat of a deep ball diminishes a ton, hopefully making short passes easier to defend since everything is more compact. More like they'll throw short slants and our guys will take bad angles and slip though.

And yeah Forcier isn't even on the injury report. Sexy times.

With as bad as the snap problems were last week, the rain can't help any. Schematically, it definitely favors Michigan.

We thought rain last year against Notre Dame favored us.

Rain + new center + Denard seeing any significant playing time = turnover machine.

I don't know if Rod is holding back on the status of Tate's injury or not. If he's not, great for us. Tate won't have to throw much in the rain so hopefully he can play quite a bit regardless. There is no way we have as many bad snaps as last week, either.

8th ranked rushing offense vs. 86th ranked rushing offense + heavy rain trumps any problems we may have with the snap, imo.

I'm also not going to put any stock into what I thought was going to happen going into any games early last season. We were all wrong about pretty much everything last season.

Rich Rod is very upfront on injuries. He brought up Molk's injury before anyone else even knew about it. He's the polar opposite of Carr in a lot of ways.

I know but this is a situation where there is an advantage to be gained from withholding info.

anyone else as nerdy as me and read brian's offensive/defensive play breakdown of last week's game every week?

i feel so nerdy while i do it, and very inadequate as a fan.

All right, I'm outta here, heading to East Lansing. Let's Go Blue, put up one more on Little Brother!

I'm just echoing Brian here but you have to admit this is pretty depressing:

Of course. UFR kills at least an hour of workplace productivity every week.

Nah, not depressing. It's a reflection of two teams that appear to be pretty evenly matched based on limited information (4 games each), the team with a better resume (wins) having a banged up QB, and Sparty being at home. I think the movement is mostly due to people not having confidence that Forcier will be in effective playing condition.

So sports bettors don't have a lot of confidence in Michigan. So what? They're wrong a large percentage of the time.

This would be depressing if Sparty were favored by double digits. A line float from either M -1 or MSU -1 to MSU -3.5 is nothing.

Edit: I am surprised by the total dropping across the board. I know the weather is supposed to suck, but neither team has shown any inclination to play competent defense, so you would expect the over to be getting pounded.

nit: should use pinnacle and not Vegas B&Ms

the closing line is the best predictor of an outcome we have... it's an efficient market

and that float is pretty substantial, especially in terms of win percentage