The public is loving Bowling Green, a high scoring machine that already went on the road to beat a Big Ten team in Maryland. First of all Maryland is not technically a Big 10 team until they do something having just entered the league. The public perception about both of these teams is completely off and now the line has moved 8 points since opening with Purdue as a 2.5 point favorite. Iâm sold at this point Purdue wins this game outright if they play smart.
We backed Purdue the first Sunday of the season and thought we had a cashed ticket against Marshall, but it was an absolute collapse in the 4th quarter of a game that started with a pick 6 and ended with an interception as Purdueâs QB Appleby had 4 interceptions. Purdue is making a change though and it comes at the right time against a paltry Bowling Green defense that has nobody worth mentioning. This is a great opportunity for David Blough to come in and look good at QB. Bowling Green canât get pressure, and they are terrible vs. the run. They are also coming off a pretty tough loss at home against Memphis that may be tough to get over here.
Purdue is a team that has a head coach in his 3rd year (I love these situations), with 15 returning starters. They havenât looked good yet, but watching the Marshall game I know this team is improved. They improved drastically last year, and this year they returned the entire offensive line with 80+ starts. I expect big days from both of their running backs Markell Jones who has 7.16 ypc and D.J. Knox who is a tough runner. Purdue is also pretty good in key situations on defense which should help. They have held opponents to 31.82% on third down while Bowling Green is just 37% at converting (I bet you thought it was better), and they held opponents to 53% TD % while Bowling Green (converting at 53%). Defensively Bowling Green allowing 70% in the red zone on the road this year and 67% overall. They are also not a very disciplined team with nearly 11 penalties a game ranking them 123rd in the country. They have been opportunistic on defense which gave them the game against Maryland, but in three games only have forced 4 turnovers. However, they are a MAC team..
The MAC is looking pretty good these days as Northern Illinois nearly beat Ohio State, and Toledo took down Arkansas both on the road. However, the MAC West is far superior to the MAC East. Ironically Purdue just 1-2 vs. the MAC have only played teams from the West. MAC East on the road vs. Big Ten the last 2 years are 1-11 with the 1 win being Bowling Green at Maryland with +3 turnovers. Purdue is much better than Maryland in my opinion who only returned 10 starters, and were -99.3 yards per game in the conference a year ago.
Both teams are off emotional losses from last week, but I think Duke survives them better being at home. Georgia Tech actually lost a bigger game at Notre Dame and the TD loss was much worse as they scored twice in the final minutes. Georgia Techâs head coach Paul Johnson already called this Duke defense the best heâs seen in 8 years of coaching against them, and while they havenât played anyone with this good of a defense they have slowly been improving the last few years and are very good against the pass holding opposing QBâs to 48% and the run ranking 19th.
The bigger story here is Georgia Tech is likely without some key players in A-back Qua Searcy, and their top receiver Mike Summers. This could lead to QB Justin Thomas trying to make too much happen himself. To me Duke is not that much worse in talent than Georgia Tech, and they are an extremely disciplined team. Both teams are going to like to run the ball more shortening the game, and Duke is just too good in the red zone on defense and on third downs for me to bet against them. I see extreme value in backing Duke this week as they are +10 TFL, +6 sacks, and only get penalized 6 times a game to go along with that they are holding opponents to 18% conversions on third down and havenât allowed a red zone TD. This one should be a fun one to watch with defense and very low scoring.
