The Michigan State Spartans and Minnesota Golden Gophers clash Saturday in a week 4 Big Ten conference college football game from Spartan Stadium.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers will be out to build on their 49-7 rout over Colorado last time out. Tanner Morgan’s thrown for 618 yards, 4 touchdowns and an interception on 71.7% passing while Mohamed Ibrahim leads Minnesota’s ground attack with 464 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns. Trey Potts and Bryce Williams have also combined for 353 rushing yards and 4 scores this season. Chris Autman-Bell leads the receiving group for Minnesota with 11 grabs for 214 yards while Brevyn Spann-Ford and Michael Brown-Stephens each have 100+ receiving yards on the year. On defense, Mariano Sori-Marin has a team-high 16 total tackles while Danny Striggow has a pair of sacks this season.
The Michigan State Spartans will hope to rebound from a 39-28 loss to Washington last time out. Payton Thorne has thrown for 768 yards, 7 touchdowns and 4 interceptions on 63.8% passing while Jalen Berger has a team-high 254 rushing yards with 4 touchdowns. Keon Coleman leads MSU’s receiving group with 15 grabs for 236 yards and 3 TDs while Tre Mosley has 141 receiving yards with 3 scores and Jayden Reed has 107 receiving yards this season. On defense, Cal Haladay has a team-high 21 total tackles while Kendell Brooks and Angelo Grose each have 20 total tackles with Brooks logging 12 solo tackles this season. Jacoby Windmon has a team-high 5.5 sacks as part of MSU’s 12 sacks as a team this season.
Minnesota is 13-3-1 ATS in their last 17 road games and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games against a team with a winning record while the over is 8-3 in their last 11 games in September. Michigan State is 8-1-2 ATS in their last 11 home games and 6-2-1 ATS in their last 9 conference games while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 games following a loss.
I get why Michigan State opened as a favorite, but while Minnesota’s numbers may be a bit inflated by inferior competition, the reality here is that they have steamrolled everyone they’ve faced so far. Michigan State was opened up and exposed for much of that game against Washington and I have to wonder how the Golden Gophers will use that to their advantage. Head-to-head, the Gophers have had a ton of the recent success against Michigan State and I expect that to continue here. Give me Minnesota in the pick ‘em.