Northwestern favored by 5.5

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Their defense is supposed to be pretty good.

They're fighting for bowl eligibility.

It's a quasi-neutral field. The field conditions are supposed to be awful.
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
I don’t think many people thought this would be the case.
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Remember: the game fixers & bookmakers favored Nebby by a lot over the Gopher Team when the husker team was ranked… you never know what the damn odds makers are up to…I guess I’m just not too impressed with what I have seen from Nu, but I’m certainly no expert
 
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I’ve not seen -5.5 but I am seeing NW -3.5

Splitting hairs, but I still think we just win outright.
 

If we are being honest Northwestern should be favorites. I would have guessed by a touchdown. If you throw out the results from Northwestern state and we should Gophers have played like one of the worst teams in the big ten with the exception of the Nebraska game. That was the outlier. The fact it is a road game and that makes Northwestern better favorites. I have watch Northwestern and they are a good not great team. The are better in both offense and defense than the Gophers and I would quess spread is close to 7 at kickoff.
 






I'm glad Northwestern is favored. It would make a win against Northwestern just a little easier to help me forget the non-competitive games vs OSU, Oregon, and Iowa.
 




This game is the definition of a tossup and will come down to whichever teams offense executes better. Two very similar teams and will almost certainly be a low scoring slug-fest where one or two key plays will be the difference.
 

MNVCGUY said:
This game is the definition of a tossup and will come down to whichever teams offense executes better. Two very similar teams and will almost certainly be a low scoring slug-fest where one or two key plays will be the difference.
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One dissimilarity: NW has a very decent run game and has outscored the Gophers in B1G play. The Gophers have a poor run game. Can be a big factor outdoors in last November. NW's defense is also better than the Gopher's. And this year's Gopher team has been epically bad on the road, for God knows what reason. This game is a big gut check not only for the players, but for the coaches.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
One dissimilarity: NW has a very decent run game and has outscored the Gophers in B1G play. The Gophers have a poor run game. Can be a big factor outdoors in last November. NW's defense is also better than the Gopher's. And this year's Gopher team has been epically bad on the road, for God knows what reason. This game is a big gut check not only for the players, but for the coaches.
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NW has averaged 18.9 the Gophers have averaged 17.7 points in conference games. Neither offense has much to brag about.

As for run games....their run game has been better than ours but we have also been without Taylor (and our top backup Turner) most of the year. Seems like Taylor got out of the Oregon game healthy so would expect to see him in there against Northwestern. He changes our offensive dynamic a lot.

I would expect both defenses to look good against these offenses. Game will almost certainly come down to turnovers and which team executes better when the chips are down. Close low scoring slug-fest between two very similar teams.

Taylor is the x-factor though. If he is healthy he can absolutely make a massive difference for us.
 

Gopher Mac said:
If we are being honest Northwestern should be favorites. I would have guessed by a touchdown. If you throw out the results from Northwestern state and we should Gophers have played like one of the worst teams in the big ten with the exception of the Nebraska game. That was the outlier. The fact it is a road game and that makes Northwestern better favorites. I have watch Northwestern and they are a good not great team. The are better in both offense and defense than the Gophers and I would quess spread is close to 7 at kickoff.
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Essentially agree with all of that. I would have been surprised if they weren't favored by the amount they are favored (-5.5).

Although they aren't so good offensively, they've shown that they can run at an acceptable level and we rarely have this season. Defensively, their yards per play allowed number isn't impressive but they've kept the scores of their opponents lower. They also have been more successful at forcing turnovers although they've given up more turnovers of their own than we have.

ESPN rates NW v MN odds at 65% to 35%, Northwestern. That's the closest odds they have for next weekend's list of Big Ten games. They should win but their chances are far from a slam dunk.
 

MNVCGUY said:
NW has averaged 18.9 the Gophers have averaged 17.7 points in conference games. Neither offense has much to brag about.

As for run games....their run game has been better than ours but we have also been without Taylor (and our top backup Turner) most of the year. Seems like Taylor got out of the Oregon game healthy so would expect to see him in there against Northwestern. He changes our offensive dynamic a lot.

I would expect both defenses to look good against these offenses. Game will almost certainly come down to turnovers and which team executes better when the chips are down. Close low scoring slug-fest between two very similar teams.

Taylor is the x-factor though. If he is healthy he can absolutely make a massive difference for us.
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Don't disagree on low scoring slugfest. Neither offense is particularly gifted ... or fast ... or creative ... or multi-faced. But I don't believe that DT can alone make up for what has been, to date, a pretty poor OL play with respect to the running game. {Better, it seems for passing plays, but you still have to complete passes.} In games like this one, the team that wins in the trenches often takes home the win ... unless turnovers by the skill guys flip the dynamic. This year's Gopher team has also been pretty ineffective in forcing turnovers. Hope this is a big rebound game for the OL and a return to opportunism by the defense. Go Gophers!
 

imthewalrus said:
Remember: the game fixers & bookmakers favored Nebby by a lot over the Gopher Team when the husker team was ranked… you never know what the damn odds makers are up to…I guess I’m just not too impressed with what I have seen from Nu, but I’m certainly no expert
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NU was tied with NE at NE with 3 minutes to go.
Played USC tough for a 1/2
Lost to Michigan on walk off FG
Blown out by Oregon 34-0 before scoring two garbage time TD's.
Lost to Tulane 23-3 in opener with QB throwing 4 INT's


Won at Penn State.
Blanked Purdue 19-0
Beat UCLA 17-14

QB has 11 TD's to 9 INTs
 

MaxyJR1 said:
NU was tied with NE at NE with 3 minutes to go.
Played USC tough for a 1/2
Lost to Michigan on walk off FG
Blown out by Oregon 34-0 before scoring two garbage time TD's.
Lost to Tulane 23-3 in opener with QB throwing 4 INT's


Won at Penn State.
Blanked Purdue 19-0
Beat UCLA 17-14

QB has 11 TD's to 9 INTs
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Northwestern is solid and I expect a close game this weekend but their score against Michigan last week is really misleading.

That game should have been a Michigan blowout win. Michigan had nearly 500 yards of offense but killed themselves with 5 turnovers and 2 missed field goals.

Northwestern won the turnover battle 5-0 and managed to lose.....
 

I watched Northwestern play Nebraska, and wasn't terribly impressed by Northwestern.

Of course, I watched the Gophers play Iowa and Oregon, and was not terribly impressed.....

I think the Gophs eke out a victory. I hope they do......
 

Sparlimb said:
Northwestern is playing a lot better than we are. This game should favor them.
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IDK about that, but they have been a lot better than anticipated, especially after their Tulane game. Michigan did everything they could to give them game last week though. IDK who will win but I'm thinking it's going to be first to 13 so 5.5 either way seems high. Definitely would take the under
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Fair line based on how the teams are playing. Would be a great spot for the first road win
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MaxyJR1 said:
NU was tied with NE at NE with 3 minutes to go.
Played USC tough for a 1/2
Lost to Michigan on walk off FG
Blown out by Oregon 34-0 before scoring two garbage time TD's.
Lost to Tulane 23-3 in opener with QB throwing 4 INT's


Won at Penn State.
Blanked Purdue 19-0
Beat UCLA 17-14

QB has 11 TD's to 9 INTs
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Who didn’t win at PSU this year?

Played USC tough for a half? USC spotted a pretty good Iowa team 14 points early in the game and beat them in the 4th quarter in the rain in southern CA. USC is a pretty laid back squad that has a lot of weapons.

You do know the story on that Michigan loss for NU don’t you?
 

Gophergrandpa said:
And this year's Gopher team has been epically bad on the road, for God knows what reason.
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I think their awfulness on the road has more to do with the quality of teams they faced in the conference road games than the location. They lost to OSU, Oregon, and Iowa on the road. Iowa hasn't beaten the ranked B10 teams (Indiana, Oregon, USC) they've played but has come very close. If the refs called a catch close to the goal line for Iowa the way the refs called a very similar catch by Oregon in the Minnesota game, Iowa very well may have defeated USC on the road.

Conference scheduling has been good to the Gophers this season. Not only did they get more than their fair share of bad conference teams, they got all of those teams at home and all of the good teams on the road.

So far, the Gophers have beaten 3 bad conference teams and one average conference team (Nebraska) at home and lost to three very good conference teams on the road. I would call Northwestern an average conference team. Let's see if the Gophers can beat one of those on the road.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Close low scoring slug-fest...
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There is a reason the O/U is set at 40.5

I believe (or maybe just hope) that they perform much better against jNW than they have against 3 of the top 4 scoring defenses that we have faced on the road.
 

Unregistered User said:
There is a reason the O/U is set at 40.5

I believe (or maybe just hope) that they perform much better against jNW than they have against 3 of the top 4 scoring defenses that we have faced on the road.
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The big difference between those 3 and Northwestern is that OSU has averaged 36.8 points in conference, Oregon 31.6 in conference, and Iowa 27.6 in conference. Northwestern averages 18.9 in conference, only 1.2 points per game more than us. NW is unlikely to run away with the game like the others. The Gophers have shown some ability for late game heroics this season so, if they can hang in there throughout the game, they have a fair chance.
 

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