Week 7 viewing guide: Breaking down/predicting Michigan vs. Indiana, plus other key games from around the country
This post is locked and can be read by premium subscribers only.
Week 7 viewing guide
In what will serve as an appetizer to a Week 8 that could end up being the best week of college football we have all season long (seriously, take a glance at next week’s schedule and try not to drool: Michigan-Michigan State, Ohio State-Penn State, USC-Utah, Tennessee-Alabama, Oregon-Washington State, Clemson-Miami (FL), Florida State-Duke just to whet the whistle), Week 7 has some pretty enticing matchups of its own.
No, that doesn’t really include Michigan, which follows a pair of road games where it won by a combined 80 points with a home game where it will be a five-touchdown favorite yet again. But there are some juicy matchups both around the country and within the Big Ten. When it comes to conference play, Wisconsin-Iowa could and likely will end up determining the heavy favorite to win the Big Ten West. And while you expand outside of Big Ten Country (for this season, at least), you get the biggest blockbuster matchup of the week — and one of the best of the season so far — in Oregon vs. Washington, a top-10 battle between a pair of schools that are on their way out of the Pac-12 with their bags halfway backed to the Big Ten already. Both schools are undefeated, and the winner will be crowned as the soon-to-be-dead conference’s last (and maybe only?) shot at a College Football Playoff bid. Another unbeaten Pac-12 squad has a big matchup, too, though. That involved USC as it takes on a Notre Dame team desperate to avoid a third loss on the young season already.
Overall, I’ll take a look at nine matchups worth watching this week and share my predictions for each — both straight and against the spread. And don’t look know, but my predictions are getting less embarrassing by the week. I’m continuing to do well with Michigan and Big Ten games, but I’m also (finally) chipping away at a respectable record on overall games, too, after a straight-up disastrous start.
Last week I went 7-2 straight and 7-1-1 against the spread on a slate with a lot of games with tight spreads, and I inched to within a percentage point of getting back to .500 overall (49%). For the season, I'm 67% ATS on Michigan games at 55% on B1G games. Can I get the overall mark over the .500 mark, too? We’ll wait and see.
Let’s get to the picks.
