Gophers open as -2 point favorites @ Illinois

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I'm not surprised. The Gophers should be favored by more. Illinois won't be able to move the ball without DeVito, who I am guessing will probably miss at least a few games.
 






Yah-E said:
It’s an early line. It’ll change by Wednesday.
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I think it’ll move towards gophers. Everyone outside this message board believes Illinois sucks
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
I'm not surprised. The Gophers should be favored by more. Illinois won't be able to move the ball without DeVito, who I am guessing will probably miss at least a few games.
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I think that must be it. Sitkowsi is a known entity and he's been mostly subpar throughout his career. That interception he threw near the goal line in the 4th quarter of the Iowa game was idiocy.
 



State of Football said:
We’ll have trouble moving the ball. Their D looks tough. What is the prognosis on their QB?
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Agreed, Illinois D looks as tough as Iowa or Wisconsin usually do. Illinois beat Iowa at Iowa's own game and withstood some costly turnovers. Gophers have never beaten a Burt coached team. Without MO Gophers are in deep end of the pool if he cannot play.
 

Yea agreed if Devito is out, this line makes sense
 

I'm feeling the Gophers here. A bye week to gameplan, Mo probably healthy (why would he dress last week if he wasn't close?), Illinois banged up after a very physical game, QB likely out, Illinois very unlikely to score more than 13 points IMO. Game will probably look a lot like last night, but if Mo plays and MN is mostly clean on O, I'd say they win like 20 - 13, 17 - 10, etc. Their weapons on O are so much better than Iowa. Yes, I watched the game against PU, but Im calling that an anomaly.
 

This line worries me.

What if Vegas is wrong? Will Vegas have to shut down?

We have to think of the single moms who rely on their income from The Palomino. Won’t someone think of the children?
 




Two very good defenses. Gophs offense will be the difference. Pretty large productivity gap between these two offenses even despite Gophs last performance. Fleck and Co have had two weeks to prepare. Gophs win by 7-10 points. I think Illinois has a very good chance of being ranked as well.
 




Fleck has a great record coming out of a Bye week. Mo was close last week ("if he had a few more days, he probably would have played"), so I expect him to be back. If he's not, PJ and Kirk will have had 2 weeks to figure out a game plan without him. Whether that be some more creative running looks that the backups are better at, or really dialing in the OL to open good holes, etc.
 

I just don’t know what to think of our offense.


Mo being out was one thing but that last game was almost everyone from the QB to the OL and WRs laying an egg. The scale of wonkyness was surprisingly widespread. Any team with a defense seems really dangerous to us at this point.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
I'm not surprised. The Gophers should be favored by more. Illinois won't be able to move the ball without DeVito, who I am guessing will probably miss at least a few games.
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Their defense is legit and they have plenty of good athletes on offense. They looked like the more physical and athletic team last year when they beat us up at home.

This is a very difficult game.
 

I see a lot of people saying "Mo will be back." How do you know?

D1 FB teams do not release injury information, and Fleck never discusses injuries except in the most generic terms.

so we won't "know" for sure until the offense lines up for its first series. and the bettors will be considering that.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I see a lot of people saying "Mo will be back." How do you know?

D1 FB teams do not release injury information, and Fleck never discusses injuries except in the most generic terms.

so we won't "know" for sure until the offense lines up for its first series. and the bettors will be considering that.
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Oh man, Fleck was playing some 3d chess with Illinois if he suited him up last week and he wasn't even close
 


Coaches are sometimes rather strangely closed mouthed, sometimes superstitious, possibly a bit paranoid creatures of habit. Yet, we seem to love ‘em, forgive ‘em and once they are gone forget ‘em.

In the end the team has to just line up and play the damn game.

Beat the stinking Illini, Gopher!
 


The line moves according to the bets.
This is not a game that has much national interest so a few bets can move the line a lot.
 

TheNorthernAmir said:
Their defense is legit and they have plenty of good athletes on offense. They looked like the more physical and athletic team last year when they beat us up at home.

This is a very difficult game.
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Last year is irrelevant. I agree that their defense is legit, but Minnesota's is better. Our offense is also significantly better. Chase Brown is a really good RB, but the Gophers will be focused on stopping him, especially if DeVito is out. Sitkowski is a terrible QB. I still don't think he'd beat out Annexstad at Illinois St.

Purdue is turning out to be an above average team, and is likely one of the top 2 teams in the west. Losing to them at home was extremely frustrating, but it's not Bowling Green level. I think too many people are focused on the Purdue loss, and are forgetting that this Illinois team lost to a much worse Indiana team with DeVito playing.

If we see something close to the Gophers team we saw in the first 4 weeks, Illinois will struggle to score, and the Gophers will win by double digits.
 


Book I used opened mn by 3.5. Looks like devito also may be available
 

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