Opening line for Iowa
- Thread starter TejasCat
- Start date
Here’s the way it works, unfortunately. If a spread doesn’t make sense at first glance, there’s gotta be a reason that they’re begging you to take the points.
Iowa has a few big WR’s that have some speed as well. Athletically, definitely one of the better WR groups we’ve played this year. They will create mismatches with their WR’s and TE’s. They definitely have something at WR- not a game we want to be missing McGee and Williams, though I do think Whillock has looked good at safety.
It will depend upon you guys exploiting our 4th string cb who ND abused after he was forced to play. If our weak spot is at least prepared, i just wont be able to see you guys beating us. Doesnt matter where we play. Should be a good close game as Iowa isnt going to just lay down again.
If any one thinks Iowa is going to be a cake walk they are nuts. Can NU win sure, but they will need more effort than they had for Wisconsin. IMO simply because it is in Iowa and they are in survival mode for the West Championship. This game is a toss up at best for NU especially if our two main injuries from last week don't resolve.
At the same time this is the last chance for NU to make a statement that it belongs on the Championship Game. Lose here and you are backing in even if you make it to the B1G game.
At the same time this is the last chance for NU to make a statement that it belongs on the Championship Game. Lose here and you are backing in even if you make it to the B1G game.
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For all Iowa fans visiting the board this week - don't listen to Turk aka Mr. Wickerpark
Agree. It's in Kinnick, we are hurt in secondary, and Thorson really better find himself. He's been MIA for the last 3 weeks and this one will bite if he can't return to form. Our D is beat up and ND exposed the flaws, and we're not going to beat Ioa playing one dimensionally with an increasingly solid, but still not top tier rushing attack. We will have to do some scoring to beat these guys.
Anyone know the status of Newsome and if he's ever coming back this season?
Now would be an opportune time.
Jalen Brown is missed as well, for that matter.
Is Midvale Dave still around? He hated us with the fire of a thousand suns. Miss him.
Iowa is properly favored imo; this game will either be a close NU win or a 2 TD Iowa win. Feels like most of our games with Iowa are like that.
Would love a win obviously because it'd pretty much secure the division, but Iowa winning (going away) wouldn't really be a surprise. They have the tools to shut us down and then test our secondary if we're not healthy and relying on less proven backups.
There's no cakewalk against them; they've beaten good teams and their losses are to good teams in mostly close games.
Yes Dave is still around. He broke his leg in the 1995 game against Iowa and swore eternal vengeance. He always does what he can to make sure the team treats that game as our bowl game.
haha - check out the headline ESPN article they posted on Monday about how much the sports books lost on Sunday... talking about all the skewed lines to the favorites and popular teams and how they all won... I bet the Sports Books were all too happy to provide commentary and help the article got posted, just to encourage all the bettors out there that they can win and that it's not a rigged game.
http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/25181697/costly-week-9-nfl-sunday-disaster-sportsbooks
Again spreads are not designed to predict outcomes or determine which team is better. They are designed to split the money down the middle.
The sharps are going to be all over Iowa because the computers love them in this matchup. In order to split the money evenly Vegas needs to get the public on Northwestern.
Boy, do I feel dumb for jumping the gun on NU...
The line is now Iowa -11, despite only 19% of public bets on Iowa. This "reverse line movement" is an indication that sharp professional money is on Iowa, while Joe Blow (and me) saw NU as a double digit dog and wet our pants.
The line is now Iowa -11, despite only 19% of public bets on Iowa. This "reverse line movement" is an indication that sharp professional money is on Iowa, while Joe Blow (and me) saw NU as a double digit dog and wet our pants.
We get waxed an still win the West we will be 20+ dogs in B1G Title game. Michigan will need to make a statement just in case Alabama loses to Georgia. Would move Georgia past them. Let's win this game.
ESPN loves NU at all times, but has Iowa with a 77% chance to win. ( Just to preemptively respond : please note sarcasm font is ON for the ESPN reference )
The computers think Iowa is going to win by 17 so +11 is still value.
These statistical computer models are correct about 55 percent of time compared to Joe Blow who is as accurate as a coin flip.
So these computer models are only about 5% more accurate than a coin toss? That seems pretty negligible to me.
It's very simple: algorithms place significant value on Iowa playing at a consistently high level (all 6 wins by double digits of which 5 were blowouts; their 3 losses relatively close to good teams), and they place significant value on Northwestern playing extremely inconsistently despite our 5-4 record (close win against Rutgers and loss to Akron weigh us down in the algorithms).
It's that simple: if you average our results and compare them to the average of Iowa's; you would guess that Iowa wins this game by an average of 10-12 points if you ran the simulation 10000 times.
We are a "chaos" team; there'll be days we blowout good teams and days we lose to or struggle against horrible teams, and everything in-between is possible. It is what it is.
It's that simple: if you average our results and compare them to the average of Iowa's; you would guess that Iowa wins this game by an average of 10-12 points if you ran the simulation 10000 times.
We are a "chaos" team; there'll be days we blowout good teams and days we lose to or struggle against horrible teams, and everything in-between is possible. It is what it is.
If you bet large sums of money on a 100 games in a season and win big 55 percent of the time you are happy. The guys betting big on this game are using that logic in trusting the math.
I mentioned this in another thread. Will repost here:
55% is considered ultra-professional level success when it comes to spread picking over an extended period of time. These are razor-thin margins that bettors work with. 50% is a chimp flipping a coin. 52.3% is break-even with the traditional -110 vigorish charged by bookmakers. Anything above 52.3% is profitable. 55% is amazing.
Thanks, the logic makes sense if you bet in volume over the long run and like you say, the margins are pretty tight.
In all 3 of Iowa losses, they had golden opportunities to win, but flukey things happened. I was at the Wisconsin game where 2 special teams gaffes from Iowa's punt return team gave the game to the Badgers. Against Purdue the officiating was horrendous, and in the Pena State loss a weird interception at the 5 yard line (don't know why Iowa didn't just try to run it) was the ball game. So, as an Iowa fan, this season has been very frustrating, with lost opportunities to be sitting at 9 - 0, or at very least 8 -1. Oh well, I'll be in Kinnick this Sat hoping for a beatdown of the fighting Fitzies.
Yes that has proven to be the case with Iowa this year. Many Iowa fans couldn't believe Purdue was anywhere from a 1.5 to 3.5 point favorite last week. And Purdue wins by 2. The advanced metrics like Iowa a lot. Hawks have lost 3 games in just bad luck/weird ways (always the loser lament) and housed the other teams on the schedule. So the computers like Iowa. I would not touch the line this week in any way at all. Nothing would surprise me.
Here's a fun stat:
Going back to the 2014 season, we have 22 losses. Only 3 of those 22 losses have come against teams who have a QB in the bottom half of the country when it comes to rushing - 2014 Cal (Goff), 2016 and 2017 Wisconsin (Hornibrook). That's it.
Stanley isn't a runner.
Go 'Cats.
Going back to the 2014 season, we have 22 losses. Only 3 of those 22 losses have come against teams who have a QB in the bottom half of the country when it comes to rushing - 2014 Cal (Goff), 2016 and 2017 Wisconsin (Hornibrook). That's it.
Stanley isn't a runner.
Go 'Cats.
A factor in the Cal loss was Dykes’ use of Luke Rubenzer as an alternate to Goff. Rubenzer gashed the Cats, played little the rest of the year and then converted to Safety from QB.
Ah yes, how could I forget how he tore us apart. So then it's really just the two Wisconsin losses then. In short, the 'Cats defense is well suited to play against traditional offenses like Iowa's. Add in the fact that Fitz hates Iowa, plus we're something like 11-2 with 7 outright wins in our last 13 games as underdogs, and we might as well not even play the game tomorrow.
It’s that easy huh? Should we just let Ferentz know they can forfeit ahead of time and save the carbon emissions from the team’s trip to Iowa City?
TBH I have a bad feeling about this game and if we’re to win it we’ll need to play as well as we did against MSU and Wisconsin. They’re not as talented overall as ND but they match up very well against our weaknesses. Iowa is very good, could be undefeated, and this will be anything but a cakewalk as it is a must win game for them to save their season.
I assume you didn't watch any of the 3 games I referenced...typical uniformed N'Western "fan".
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