Football Odds: Michigan State vs Purdue

November 14, 2009

It’s a battle of two mediocre Big Ten teams when the Michigan State Spartans head to Purdue to take on the Boilermakers. The football spreads are showing the Spartans as 3 point favorites with the over/under listed at 53.5. If you are going to do any football betting on this game or others this weekend, then we recommend you take advantage of the $500 in FREE bonus money offered to our readers by BetUS!

If you look at Purdue’s season, obviously they have played well enough to make it a lot better than the 5-5 ATS record in the football odds category. The Purdue Boilermakers have lost very close games to Oregon (38-36), Northern Illinois (28-21), Notre Dame (24-21) and Northwestern (27-21), and in all of these games they had a real chance to win or let victory slip away. Lately some of this luck stuff has been moving in their favor, as evidenced by the wins over Ohio State and Michigan. Sure, they were beaten 37-0 by Wisconsin, but that was an anomaly, really.

Joey Elliott could be less error-prone (13 INT’s), but you can’t deny that he has helped Purdue move the ball up the field, and he’s actually topped 280 yards a few times, and against the better team’s on Purdue’s schedule. One thing that has been unfortunate for the Boilermakers is that Ralph Bolden has slowed down quite a bit. The sophomore running back, who had 234 yards on the opening weekend against Toledo, more than anyone in the country, had 123 in the next game against Oregon and hasn’t hit the century mark since. However, last week’s 98-yard effort against Michigan offers some level of encouragement.

Michigan State’s been up and down this season, but the football odds dictate that they can get bowl-eligible with a win in this game. The Michigan State Spartans have also blown a few games this season; they could have beaten Central Michigan, which scored nine points in the final minute; Notre Dame, which scored with four minutes to go; Wisconsin, which had to survive a rather furious rush at the end; Iowa, which pulled out victory with no time left, and Minnesota, which overcame a fourth-quarter Spartan lead.

Kirk Cousins has put a choke hold on the quarterback job in East Lansing. The sophomore has thrown for almost 110 yards the last four games and, most importantly, he’s thrown just one interception in the last five contests. He is a talent, for sure, and he better be, because he has gotten sporadic support, at best, from the running game.

Overall, there is an edge for Michigan State on defense (3.1 ypc allowed). They can truly make Purdue one-dimensional, and have a better chance of forcing mistakes out of Purdue’s QB than the other way around. We’ll go ahead and lay the points with Michigan State, the three-point favorite in the BetUS college football odds.

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Posted by Steve Janus · Filed Under Football Predictions 

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