{"id":10025,"date":"2010-10-29T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T17:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10025"},"modified":"2010-10-28T18:55:15","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T23:55:15","slug":"big-ten-expert-football-picks-michigan-state-at-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/big-ten-expert-football-picks-michigan-state-at-iowa-10025\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Ten Expert Football Picks: Michigan State at Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans at Iowa Hawkeyes
\nSaturday, 10\/30\/2010, 3:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Iowa -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Iowa -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 50
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 50
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Iowa -250 \/ Michigan State +210<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Iowa<\/a>
The Iowa Hawkeyes are a healthy 6.5-point home favorite against the undefeated Michigan State Spartans this week<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan State is coming off an exciting 35-27 comeback win over Northwestern last week and now heads back on the road for what many are calling the school\u2019s toughest obstacle remaining for a Big Ten championship.\u00a0 \u201cThe next step is probably what we thought going into the season, one of our bigger challenges:\u00a0 going on the road to play Iowa,\u201d said Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio.\u00a0 \u201cThey win the right way.\u201d\u00a0 Saturday\u2019s game marks the 42nd meeting between the two schools and the Spartans trail 18-21-2 in the series, including an 8-12-1 record in games played in Iowa City.\u00a0 The team has dropped eight of the last 12 meetings, but the last three have been decided by a combined 12 points.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be easy to remain undefeated and the Spartans must win at Iowa for the first time since 1989 to do it.\u00a0 Michigan State is 4-0 ATS versus conference opponents and the college football oddsmakers have still made them a 6.5-point underdog.<\/p>\n

The Spartans have been successful in taking the ball away and currently rank eighth nationally in forcing 20 turnovers, which has resulted in a +1.13 turnover margin.\u00a0 The 20 takeaways are six more than last season\u2019s total in 13 games.\u00a0 Michigan State also gets it done on the ground, ranking fifth in the Big Ten and No. 28 in rushing offense, averaging 193.5 yards per game.\u00a0 Under Dantonio, the club is 13-2 in games it gaines 200-plus yards rushing, including a perfect 5-0 in 2010.\u00a0 Quarterback Kirk Cousins is also gaining respect from opposing defenses after throwing for 331 yards and three touchdowns last week.<\/p>\n

Iowa dropped a 31-30 home game to the Wisconsin Badgers last week and now looks to spoil a perfect season for Saturday\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 \u201cThey are a very balanced football team,\u201d Ferentz said of Michigan State.\u00a0 \u201cThey are playing very well right now.\u201d\u00a0 The Hawkeyes have still won 48 of their last 58 games in Kinnick Stadium dating back to the 2002 season, including a 4-1 mark this season.\u00a0 Iowa ranks 11th nationally in scoring defense by allowing just 15.7 points per game and eighth in rushing defense (92.1 ypg).\u00a0 The squad is 4-2 ATS this year and 21-10 ATS over the last three campaigns combined.<\/p>\n

The Hawkeyes rush defense has posted some impressive numbers this year, but the unit has surrendered five rushing scores the past two weeks after not allowing any over the first five games.\u00a0 Iowa generally plays a conservative brand of football and limits mistakes which is represented in ranking fifth in the country in turnover margin.\u00a0 Part of this year\u2019s success has been the improvement of quarterback Ricky Stanzi, who has thrown a touchdown in each of his last 16 games.\u00a0 He was also just named one of the 16 semifinalists for the Davey O\u2019Brien Award, which goes to the nation\u2019s top signal caller.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Spartans are 1-4 ATS in their last five games as an underdog of 3.5 to 10 points, while the Hawkeyes are 27-11 ATS following a SU loss.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let another Saturday of winners pass you bye and get on board with the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans at Iowa Hawkeyes Saturday, 10\/30\/2010, 3:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Iowa -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Iowa -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 50 Current Total:\u00a0 50 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Iowa -250 \/ Michigan State +210 Michigan State is coming off an exciting 35-27 comeback win over Northwestern last week and now heads back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":3999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3442,1281,3653,3377,3238,500,3378],"class_list":["post-10025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-kinnick-stadium","tag-kirk-ferentz","tag-mark-dantonio","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-ricky-stanzi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10025"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10029,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10025\/revisions\/10029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}