Gopher-Hawkeye Prediction

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It's all about defense. The Gophs young defense has been destroyed in space in the spread by faster backs (Michigan and Maryland) but I don't believe Iowa has that kind of speed and doesn't run the spread as much. I predict a close game with a W by the good guys. Gophers 33 (at least one missed extra point) Iowa 31.
 

The prez sez said:
Tanner Morgan was knocked out of last year's game. This time he delivers knockout blow. Ibrahim gets 150 YDs and Tanner gets at least 3 TDs and 300 yards passing. 38-24 Phars. I'm also predicting an 8-minute drive thanks to o-line.
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As much as I like Mo, if he gets 150 yards rushing on Iowa I will be surprised. Iowa has tended to really shut down our running game in an effort to make us one-dimensional. Last year, we had 63 yards rushing with 2.1 yards per carry. The year before we had 86 rushing yards and 2.8 yards per carry. Last year we did have 368 yards passing but, so far, we appear to have only 2 consistently reliable receivers as opposed to 3 last year.
 

cjbfbp said:
As much as I like Mo, if he gets 150 yards rushing on Iowa I will be surprised. Iowa has tended to really shut down our running game in an effort to make us one-dimensional. Last year, we had 63 yards rushing with 2.1 yards per carry. The year before we had 86 rushing yards and 2.8 yards per carry. Last year we did have 368 yards passing but, so far, we appear to have only 2 consistently reliable receivers as opposed to 3 last year.
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Mo and Jackson can both fill that 3rd spot.
 


FormerFatOL said:
It's all about defense. The Gophs young defense has been destroyed in space in the spread by faster backs (Michigan and Maryland) but I don't believe Iowa has that kind of speed and doesn't run the spread as much. I predict a close game with a W by the good guys. Gophers 33 (at least one missed extra point) Iowa 31.
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Bolded: I know this is a fringe take that does not matter now ....... but at the time I really felt that Fleck told Ryerse to miss the last PAT on purpose.

Why? Because it didn't matter, and most importantly to shut up all the jerks who went after Walker for the missed OT PAT against Maryland. Like "see! It can happen to anyone!"

Take it for the little it's worth, a wild ass guess.
 


Gold Rush said:
I wonder if they have noticed yet because they don't usually miss on a team and lose money this many times in a row.
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This is a major pet peeve of mine. The whole point of running a sports book is balancing the wagers you take on either side, so that as much as possible you are indifferent to the outcome of the event--this is why lines move as bets come in. "Vegas" couldn't care less that the Gophers are doing poorly against the spread, because their whole business model is paying half of the punters with the other half's money, and pocketing the vig.

There may be some edge cases where books retain some tail-end risk (see: Nebraska to win the CFP, Leicester City to win the EPL) to boost revenue, but things like game lines, over/unders, all of your standard wagers, a book having significant exposure to the outcome of a game is a massive failure in line setting.
 

SixBySix said:
This is a major pet peeve of mine. The whole point of running a sports book is balancing the wagers you take on either side, so that as much as possible you are indifferent to the outcome of the event--this is why lines move as bets come in. "Vegas" couldn't care less that the Gophers are doing poorly against the spread, because their whole business model is paying half of the punters with the other half's money, and pocketing the vig.

There may be some edge cases where books retain some tail-end risk (see: Nebraska to win the CFP, Leicester City to win the EPL) to boost revenue, but things like game lines, over/unders, all of your standard wagers, a book having significant exposure to the outcome of a game is a massive failure in line setting.
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Yup. Right now the betting on the spread is 51% - 49% for Iowa. So almost a perfect series of lines and adjustments this week. I was perusing the Iowa board and they're about 50/50 in their ATS thread on who will cover in this game.

BTW, about 90% of the moneyline is coming in on Iowa. That seems high for such a slight favorite, but their odds have continually been nerfed to match.
 


Not sure what to expect. So I'll just be optimistic and say that the breaks will go our way tonight.

Gophers 30, Hawkeyes, 27.

We win it on a FG on the last play of the game.
 



cjbfbp said:
As much as I like Mo, if he gets 150 yards rushing on Iowa I will be surprised. Iowa has tended to really shut down our running game in an effort to make us one-dimensional. Last year, we had 63 yards rushing with 2.1 yards per carry. The year before we had 86 rushing yards and 2.8 yards per carry. Last year we did have 368 yards passing but, so far, we appear to have only 2 consistently reliable receivers as opposed to 3 last year.
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AJ Epenesa personally gave the OL fits over the past two seasons. Now that he’s in the NFL, hopefully things will improve for the running game tonight.
 

AJ embarrassed us at times last year. The year before it was Anthony Nelson.

Schlueter should take this game personal, if he has any pride in himself as an OL. He was the recipient of some thorough azz-kickings both times.

Sorry to name drop him .... but if it motivates him to smash some people, I'm here for it.
 

Both were witty, but I'll give the nod to Pierce as he did more for our country...
Gopher vs. Hawkeye.jpg
 




This is not looking real ideal tonight, because I do not trust our defense at all, and Iowa's defense is almost never poor, but anything could happen. UM 24 IA 33
 

Mo is a beast, TM2 will have a big game. MN 35 Iowa 33. Then will take a photo with Floyd and that will be my families Christmas card!
 


52 Gophers
27 Hawkeyes

155 yards and 2 TD for Mo Ibrahim
2 TD catches for Bateman
1 TD for Conny-Durr
 




bfriedrichs10 said:
Bracket coverage and stacking the box should leave favorable numbers all over the place. Morgan is a good enough QB to take advantage of that. Iowa can get away with one or the other, but not both IMO.
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Or I guess not.
 

Final - Iowa wins 35-7. This came in pretty much as I thought and Iowa covered easily. Of note - this is the 4th straight game the spread was covered by 3 TD's. If I were setting the line for next week's game I would make it Purdue by 13 even though Fleck's teams have played them very well in the past.

I did think the Gopher offense would be better and I thought they could put up 20 even on a good defense but something is wrong here on both offense and defense. The Gophers have lost their mojo of last year and probably need to hit the reset button at the end of the year. At this point, I do not know if they will win another game the rest of the year.
 

PeoplesFront said:
Absolutely. And he will.
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Didn't watch him most of the game, and I don't think I needed to. I assume he had a mostly solid game, against a significantly less talented DE this year.

The one bad play I did catch was a missed assignment. He took a quick step towards the right, for no good reason (no one there), and then tried to back out back to the left to block VanValkenburg, but it was too late.

No idea what happened there. But then, I really have no idea what the hell our offense was trying to do most of the night.
 

Well, I said I didn't think this Gopher defense could stop the run. I was, unfortunately, right.
The drop off from last year to this year is precipitous and that surprises me. I figured there would be growing pains to some extent, but I didn't think the drop off from last year to this year would be so great. It's as if we had a whole team of freshmen learning to play the game. With the NCAA giving a free extra season to anyone who wants it, I wonder if we will see any improvement over other teams for next season. In any case, this is a great year to not be allowed into the stadium. Watching from home is enough pain to bear.
 


RahSkiUMah said:
Well I suck!
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Not your fault friend. That Iowa team is not a world beater. They are not a bad team though, very similar to the type of squad they always had. Gophers should have at least been in the game. That was an extremely embarrassing loss.
 

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