Iowa -145 3% play
61% of the money and tickets on Minnesota here as we have the #7 team in the country a dog on the road to the #23 team. I know I mentioned leaning toward Minnesota on the podcast, but this just sets things up for them to have a poor performance. When I look at how they have done in Big Ten play on the road they were 1-8 the last two years on the road. This year they are 3-0 on the road, but they beat Fresno State by 3, a team that’s having a bad year, they beat Purdue by 7 and Purdue lost their starting QB in the game. And they beat Rutgers, a historically bad team. Last year they not only lost road games they got smoked and by some pretty bad teams including Nebraska by 25, Illinois by 24, and Maryland by 29 points!.
Minnesota is having a great year, but they haven’t faced quality defenses. They have major questions on their offensive line. The offensive line played their best game against Penn State, but they can’t do it in back to back weeks and this time on the road. They rank 99th in pass protection. What is a major red flag is the fact that they allow 3.5% more sacks on the road than at home. The sack % of the units they faced on the road rank 122nd, 91st, and 112th. Minnesota is not going to be able to run the ball on Iowa, and I fear Minnesota will be in some third and long situations.
Minnesota’s receivers have been really impressive last week, but we saw signs of Penn State’s secondary having issues in the Michigan game where they gave up 21 points at home, and it should have been 28 if it weren’t for a drop in the end zone. Iowa’s defense went on the road and held Michigan and their elite receivers to 10 points in the game. Penn State also ranked 8th in yards per play, but that has come against an average offense ranking 93rd in ypp offense. Iowa might be better on defense and they are at home, where teams dreams go to die. Especially Top 10 teams. I still have questions about Iowa’s ability to get margin, which is why I’m playing the Money line here.
