The #4 ranked Michigan Wolverines play the lowly Rutgers Scarlet Knights in a clash between Big Ten East Division teams on Saturday, 11/10/18 at the Home Point.com Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.
The Wolverines are coming off one-sided wins over Wisconsin, Michigan State and Penn State while the Scarlet Knights have lost eight games in a row. Michigan is 6-0 in the Big Ten while Rutgers is 0-6 and at the bottom of the standings.
With a showdown with Big Ten championship rival Ohio State looming in the horizon, the Michigan Wolverines are peaking at the right time. After losing their opening game of the season to Notre Dame, the Wolverines have no looked back. Michigan has won eight straight games and are coming off a 42-7 demolition of the Penn State Nittany Lions last November 3rd.
In that game, the Wolverines rushed for a total of 259 yards with Karan Higdon accounting for 132 of those yards. Higdon has rushed for at least 100 yards in seven straight games. He’s rushed for 963 yards this season, 31 off his career best set last season and 37 shy of a 1000 rushing yard year. Higdon has scored seven touchdowns for the Wolverines this season.
After losing to the Wisconsin Badgers last Saturday, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights extended their losing streak to 8 games. Likewise, the Scarlet Knights are 0-6 in Big Ten East play this season to extend their conference losing skid to 9 games dating back to last season. However, Rutgers showed some life in the second half of their game against the Badgers as they allowed just 10 points in the first 34 minutes and forced Alex Hornibrook to two interceptions. After allowing 40.8 points in their first six games, the Scarlet Knights have been giving up only 24.5 points in their last 3 games played.
Freshman quarterback Artur Sitkowski had one of his best games against Wisconsin, throwing for 261 yards with a score and no interceptions. For the season, Sitkowski has only connected on 49.8% of his passes for 1,100 passing yards with 4 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. Rashim Blackshear leads the Rutgers running game with 437 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the season.
Michigan is 5-0 in their last five games and have won their last three meetings against Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are 0-5 SU in their last 5 games played and 1-5 SU in their last 6 games at home.
Although we talked about a noticeable improvement on Rutgers’ defense, they still gave up 317 rushing yards against the Badgers. That’s bad news for the Scarlet Knights because Michigan averages 217.9 rushing yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry. And with Higdon on a roll right now, I think Michigan will get their way on the ground early in this game.
Rutgers upset Michigan in their first ever Big Ten meeting but the Wolverines have clawed back since that shocking defeat. They have won the next three games between the teams and have done so by a total winning margin of 132 points.
The Wolverines are poised to run over the Scarlet Knights’ defense of the field. No question who is going to win this game, really. We’re picking the Michigan Wolverines to beat the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on 11/10/18. The moneyline odds aren’t up yet but because they are 39 point favorites to win, there won’t be much value in the Wolverines’ moneyline odds.
Michigan is 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games played and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games on the road. Rutgers is 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games against teams with winning records while Michigan is 3-11 ATS in their last 14 games against teams with losing records. The Wolverines are also 4-0 ATS in their last four games against Big Ten teams, 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games after a straight up win and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games played in the month of November. The Scarlet Knights meanwhile are just 2-8 in their last 10 games after accumulating less than 100 rushing yards in their previous game and only 7-16 ATS in their last 23 November games.
The Wolverines have taken the last three meetings between these two teams with an average winning margin of 44 points and no winning margin lower than 19 points. However, that may be deceiving because one of those games was a 78-0 blowout by Michigan.
No question, the Wolverines can cover the spread if they push for it. But right now, their main concern against a heavy underdog like Rutgers may be just getting a decent win and staying healthy. Remember that the Wolverines are 3-11 ATS in their last 14 games against teams with losing records. With this tendency to take their foot off the gas pedal against lowly teams, the +39 for Rutgers looks tempting especially since they are playing at home. Give me the underdogs and the plus points for this game. Prediction: Rutgers +39
The under is 4-1 in Rutgers last five games played but the total has gone over in 5 out of their last 6 games after rushing for less than 100 yards in their previous games. The over is also 4-1 in the last five games where Michigan was favored by at least 10.5 points, the over is also 10-4 in Michigan’s last 14 games after scoring more than 40 points in their last game and the over is 5-2 in Michigan’s last 7 Big Ten games. Head to head, the over is 4-0 in the last four games between these teams.
We talked about Michigan’s tendency to coast against lowly foes earlier but I don’t think that’s going to be much of a factor in the score. The Wolverines will look to blow out Rutgers early before taking it “easy” on their overmatched opponents. After a high scoring first half for Michigan, Rutgers should score enough points in the second half to cover the total. Prediction: Over 48.5
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