Big Ten Bloggers Pick'em: Week 2

Week 2 of the Big ten bloggers Pick'em is upon us and Linebacker-U did a decent job last week goin 10-1. Mike and Tim got tripped up by Minnesota (which I nailed by the way) and I get the dumb penalty for listening to a Michigan fan who ardently argued that UConn was going to beat the LOLverines. This week gets a little harder as some of the Big Ten schools actually play teams with a pulse. Oh, and there’s somebody named Alabama on the schedule, but for that game's picks, you'll have to wait and check out our LBU Staff predictions, coming later today. First, here are the results so far this season:

Last Week
Tim: 10-1
Mike: 10-1
Galen: 10-1
LB-U: 10 -1 2nd place - ok 5th place technically

Now to this week's games:

Date	Visitor @ Host	Time, TV	Galen	Tim	Mike	LB-U
Sat 09/11/10	Illinois State @ Northwestern	12 PM, BTN
Sat 09/11/10	Michigan State @ Florida Atlantic	12 PM, ESPNU
Sat 09/11/10	San Jose State @ Wisconsin	12 PM, ESPN or ESPN2
Sat 09/11/10	South Dakota @ Minnesota	12 PM, BTN
Sat 09/11/10	Western Illinois @ Purdue	12 PM, BTN
Sat 09/11/10	Michigan @ Notre Dame	3:30 PM, NBC
Sat 09/11/10	Iowa State @ Iowa	3:36, ABC
Sat 09/11/10	Miami @ Ohio State	3:40, ESPN
Sat 09/11/10	Southern Illinois @ Illinois	7:30 PM, BTN

Mike
My Two Cents: All the FCS teams will lose. Yes, even Illinois will beat Southern Illinois and Minnesota will beat South Dakota. Both those teams seem to be much improved over a year ago, as I was particularly impressed by Minnesota's new-found running game. The best chance for a major upset is FAU taking on Michigan State in a "neutral" site (Detroit), but the Spartans look like they've finally reached the point where they don't lose stupid games like this. San Jose State will get rolled by Wisconsin, maybe even worse than they got rolled by Alabama last week.

Iowa State is a tricky one this year. They have some decent talent returning, and I'm not quite sold on Ricky Stanzi or the Iowa running game. How is that? Because the term "Stanziball" wasn't coined for no reason. Still, Iowa is the better team on paper, and I'm not about to get cute with my picks just yet. Michigan and Notre Dame are two teams that you have to ask "was that for real?" about last week's wins. I'm much more convinced that the Wolves are on the brink than are the Irish, who were rather meh in their win over Purdue. Then there is Miami-Ohio State. The more evenly-matched game, the one in Columbus, should be a close one, but at least Ohio State won handily against an actual FBS team, unlike Miami last week. I'll go with the home team there.

Ok, so that was more like 4 cents. I'll pull it back down to one cent next week.

Tim

I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain why I picked all the FCS teams plus Florida Atlantic to lose. Iowa State certainly can keep it close with Iowa, and I'm waffling in my Yahoo College Pick Em league on whether to take Iowa to cover the spread as a 13.5 point favorite. The Cyclones have bought into their coach Paul Rhoads, who delivered a speech that still gives me goosebumps everytime I watch it, and more importantly appear to have some actual talent , particularly their dual-threat QB Austen Arnaud. I will be a tad surprised if the Hawkeyes blow them out. Ohio State should also Tressel-ball Miami to death, particularly since the Canes don't face too many defensively-sound teams in the ACC.

I was torn on who to pick in the Michigan-ND game. Michigan's offense looked more impressive than imagined against UConn's supposedly strong defense. The good news for Michigan, is that ND's defense isn't all that great, either. On the downside though, the Irish offense is far more dangerous and athletic than UConn's and should be able to expose Michigan's paper-thin secondary. If this game were in Ann Arbor, I would probably take Michigan but I'm taking ND in a close, nail-biter of a contest similar to last year.

Galen

How do you judge the Michigan-Notre Dame game? Is Notre Shame that much better and the same could be asked of Michigan. Do the Wolverines have some claws on offense or was that a mirage last week? Can Michigan’s crappy secondary handle a pass attack with some real meat to it? Way too many questions to be answered to be sure of a pick but I’ll always default to the good guys (read: NOT Notre Dame). If the tOSU-theU game wasn’t in Columbus I would think harder about it but I think the home team has a distinct advantage. I entertained thoughts of picking Iowa State since that game is really a cross-town rival buuuttttttt it’s way too early to start going out on limbs (they break easily this time of year). The rest are blatantly obvious and speak for themselves.

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