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2024 Week 11 Preview: Convalescence

Happy bye week Spartan fans!  Michigan State has the weekend off and once again it seems to have come at the perfect time. The Spartans are coming off back-to-back losses. The first was an emotional loss to the in-state rivals from down the road, and the second was a 37-point butt-kicking by yet another top 10 team. The biggest concern coming out of last weekend's loss to Indiana is the health of sophomore quarterback Aidan Chiles. The good news is that on Monday, Coach Jonathan Smith told the media that he expects Chiles to be ready to play in two weeks at Illinois. In the mean time, the good doctor recommends that the Spartan players, coaches, and fans just relax, ice those sore joints, and get physically and mentally ready for the final three, very winnable games on the schedule. As for this week, data never sleeps, I am will continue to provide some insight (and a few betting suggestions) for the action in the Big Ten and beyond. Big Ten Overview Table 1 below gives a full sum
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2024 Week 10 Recap: Snowball

Michigan State's 47-10 loss to the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday played out in a very similar manner to the loss to Ohio State back in Week Five. The Spartans got off to a surprising good start and looked like they might be able to trade blows and hang with a talented opponent. But then, at some point in the second quarter, the wheels came off, momentum was lost, and things started to snowball. By the end of the game, the Spartans were buried and fans left Spartan Stadium feeling cold. While I was disappointed by the outcome, I was not surprised. Indiana proved that they are a legit top 10 opponent. But I was surprised by the snowballing set of negative emotions from Spartan fan online following the loss. It seems a vocal sector on the fanbase now thinks the sky is falling. In times like these, it is important to view the results of the season so far in their proper perspective. One of the reasons that I like to dive so far in the numbers is that they provide a truly unbiased realit

2024 Week 10 Preview: Masquerade

Just in time for Halloween, this week is a good lesson that in life, some people go through life wearing a mask.  The kids on the block might be wearing a mask of Shrunken Head Bob, Beetlejuice, Catnap, Lady Deadpool, or Wolverine. Some of the old-school kids might be dressed as Prima Donnas. One of the local hoodlums might even pretend to be superman this week. I hear that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti plans to dress as the cowardly lion this year. A lot of folks in southeast Michigan seem to be dressed as clowns, but that isn't just a Halloween thing. Sometimes those poor fools just make me laugh. In the context of college football, even though we are now 10 weeks into the season, we still don't know who some of these teams really are. For example, a team dressed in red from the south will be visiting East Lansing this week. With an 8-0 record at the end of October, it must be Alabama, or Georgia, or Ohio State, right? Who is this masked team? It turns out that the undefe

2024 Week Nine Recap: Opportunities

Saturday night's 24-17 loss to the Michigan Wolverines by the Michigan State Spartans looks like a lost opportunity. If you would have told me prior to the game that the Spartans would outgain the Wolverines by 87 yards, that the Michigan State running back room would out-produce the Michigan running back room 204 yards to just 59 yards, and that the Spartans would only commit one turnover, I would have picked Michigan State to have won the game by more than two touchdowns. But that is not how it played out. Instead, the Wolverines eliminated many of the errors which have plagued their season so far, found a surprisingly competent passing game, and took advantage on some opportunistic trick plays to generate just enough offense to score 24 points. On the other side of the ball, the Spartans failed to capitalize on the opportunities that they created for themselves in a dominant first quarter and especially on the empty first drive where they lacked the brawn to punch the ball into