“Those three in the middle, that is not happening. No chance.”
The biggest spread of any game in college football’s conference championship weekend is in Saturday night’s Big Ten Championship Game. There, the Michigan Wolverines (No. 2 in both the College Football Playoff rankings and the AP poll) are 22.5 point favorites against the Iowa Hawkeyes (ranked No. 16 and No. 18 respectively). And most of the pregame discussion there hasn’t been about who will win, but rather about how many points the Hawkeyes’ notoriously-bad offense will score. ESPN College GameDay saw Pat McAfee pick Iowa straight up, though, and Lee Corso and guest picker Theo Von also seemingly endorse that selection:
And Corso made it quite clear in another video from panelist Kirk Herbstreit he believes in the Hawkeyes to win straight up:
There has been discussion of this tying into a year-long superdog contest between Corso and McAfee, with Corso’s only chance to win that being an Iowa win McAfee doesn’t pick (and, thus, McAfee able to defend against that with an Iowa pick). But that still led to McAfee saying “another one happens tonight” about a straight-up win from this 22.5 point underdog.
That would be an incredible upset indeed, especially given Iowa’s offensive struggles this season. The Hawkeyes ranked dead last amongst the 133 FBS schools with 247.3 offensive yards per game, and tied for 123rd with 18.0 points per game (from all units). And that already led to the in-season decision from interim athletic director Beth Goetz that offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz (son of head coach Kirk Ferentz) won’t return in 2024, with his unit not coming close to the designated performance objective of 25 points per game (even counting defensive and special teams units).
Iowa has also produced the lowest over-under number in history this season (29.5, against Northwestern) and has often delivered on the under (including in that game, which finished as a 10-7 Hawkeyes win). So much of the discussion around this one has been about just how few points they’ll score. Indeed, their first-half over-under number was initially 0.5 points before moving to a whopping 2.5. And Fox Sports Radio betting analyst Jared Lee Smith came up with one particular parlay on just how bad the Iowa offense will be here:
And there have been several remarkable reactions to these GameDay picks:
So those GameDay pickers have much more faith in the Hawkeyes than many. Or even their colleagues. After all, GameDay host Rece Davis ends the clip at top with “Those three in the middle, that is not happening.” and Herbstreit agreed. So we’ll see which GameDay picks wind up coming true.
