A game you are not interested in but will be very quickly: Bowling Green @ Purdue! WRITE-UP inside!

7 posted winners in row, going for 8. The goal is 10. 

Last CFB season: Not good. 

This season: A respectable 2-0. 

 
This week's game: Bowling Green -2.5 @ Purdue. 

Why am I taking this game over my locals? Because they destroyed Maryland, a Big 10 team (my capping conference of choice) @ Maryland 48-27. You may not think much of Maryland. But they are an up and coming team in a very tough conference so they play like hell against everyone who isn't OSU, Mich State and Wisconsin to get themselves wins and into a Bowl. And when a team, especially an out of conference team, comes in their house and beats their head in, it turns my head to that team. I also have had a fondness for Purdue for many years so I do watch them when they are televised. 

We are taking Bowling Green here. 

Why? 

If nothing else, remember these numbers: 

2-22 

452.7 

609.3 

But is he ready to go toe to toe against a starting QB on Bowling Green named Matt Johnson that is averaging whopping 452.7 passing ypg??? The team is averaging a mind-blowing 609.3 yards of offense a game. And before you say, against who? I will tell you: 

Tennessee 

Maryland 

Memphis 

Folks, those aren't pushovers! In fact, that's pretty good quality. And yes, BG does give up a TON of yards. But they will score on you in every way possible and if you don't have a great defense, how do you stop them and worse, how do you match them on offense? 

And you are asking this kid to match them...this week...in his first college start. Yes, I'll lay the 2.5. 

Next point.

Miscellaneous points 

-BG is coming off a tough loss no one thought they would compete in against Memphis 44-41. That game certainly is a boost of confidence for them, even in a loss. 

-Purdue will almost certainly run the ball down BG's throats and their running game is decent. The results in this area will be there. But if BG gets out to a lead, you can't run the ball to score after score because BG will pull away, and Purdue simply won't have time to catch up. Their offense just isn't suited to win this game at the moment, especially without a QB in Appleby who could have kept this game close and even won it being benched (and he wouldn't have turned it over because BG's defense is terrible). 

-Purdue is missing it's starting LB and backup LB. I don't even know who is third and how competent they would be. Not a meager position to be thin at against a high flying offense. 

-Purdue has changed QB's before. In fact they've done in every year the past 4 years. Where did it get them? After switching to Appleby they went 1-6 last year and 1-2 this year. That's 2-8 with Appleby and the big switch that was supposed to win them games. The year before that? 1-12 on the year no matter who QB'ed. The year before that? Another lost season. And here they are again, switching QB's in a game I think is one of the worst possible times to do so. 

I will say I don't want this kid to struggle too much because he will be yanked for Appleby and Appleby will be effective on this defense (and he'll come in knowing he had his job taken from him so he'll be playing over his head...but right now...he's on the bench so that's a good thing). So if Purdue largely runs the ball and the kid completes a few short passes, he'll stay in the game run clock and BG will be trying to score on them all day and score quickly.  

If you don't have what you need to back BG under a FG here, I can't offer more. The line is still 2.5 right now so that's good.

And if you didn't want to read any of this, go look at the sentences containing the red, orange and blue numbers and that will serve as your cliff notes.

The pick: 

Bowling Green -2.5 over Purdue