NU vs. Duke -10
- Thread starter mkilla
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I figured it would be NU -4 to -6. Glad I am not a bettor because it would be very tempting to take Duke and points, and I could never bet against NU. Fitz teams' wins by 10 or more against P5 teams are pretty rare. I like the Cats, but not by 10.
Spreads like this always make me uncomfortable.NU hardly ever blows out their opponent and mostly seem to surprise when we are dogs.Add the fact we are going against a team that has had their way with us the last few times we have played them and that gives me the willies.Duke's QB can run a bit also.I will take victory formation and get out of Ryan Field with a win.6 point spread I figure.
If I recall correctly, we've been favorites the last few times we've played them and lost them all. Ten points seems too high to me. Vegas must be thinking that Temple is awful, which is certainly possible.
I cannot wait for this game. Really want to see that the offensive line play is not a mirage. Want to see it dominate the Blue Devil front 7. I think it’s quite possible.
Duke is better than Nebraska at QB, WRs, and DL - at least. I think that NU needs a better showing than it had last week.
You're crazy. Thompson is head and shoulders above the Duke QB. Not even close!
I like the plan. To balance the offense, let several backs have carries. Did you see the urgency in Porter running? Like "I have to win the damn job back!"
We need to get Ryan to stay hot. Ryan will be the reason we knock off Whiskey, the Nits, or the Nuts. I always favor a balanced attack, plus we do not have the luxury of having an offensive line that had usually two All Americans on it like my uncle had OSU from 1983-1986. There will be few teams, if any, on our schedule that we can just run Porter and Hull off tackle every play. We need to just beat Duke and get this monkey off our back!!!!
100% agree. We need to keep the momentum of the passing game going! Fitz needs to see that he has a talented QB and to start trusting him with the ball in key situations
Don't worry, Fitz is not going to turtle from the first quarter. Against Neb we had 314 passing yards and 214 rushing yards. The passing and rushing attempts were fairly even all game until Fitzturtle took over to protect the lead. It should be a fun game and hopefully a victory for NU, we are overdue against Duke.
I'd have thought the line would be somewhere like NU by 1 to 3 points.
We almost always come out flat, thinking we've already won the game because we're laying so many points.
And Fitz only cares about winning, not covering. I think he goes out of his way to win without covering.
We almost always come out flat, thinking we've already won the game because we're laying so many points.
And Fitz only cares about winning, not covering. I think he goes out of his way to win without covering.
No. After just saying he only cares about winning, you say he goes out of his way to not cover. (eyeroll)
No. I agreed with your first part, Fitz definitely only cares about winning. He doesn't give a rats @ss about whether he covers or not. No head coach should. But you said: "I think he goes out of his way to win without covering." No, just no.
In 2015 and 2018, combined, we went 19-8 and had a point differential of like +30
I think the issue is with that last part.
It's not like he goes out of his way to play for close games; it's that this is the explicit strategy that leads to those outcomes.
Fitz is an adherent to the Tressel school of endgame strategy aka Tresselball: get the lead and then pound the air out of the ball, trusting your defense to win.
The strategy has upsides and downsides: the downside is that you're less likely to score on offense unless the opponent can't stop the run at all which means the game will remain close and potentially can be lost more easily; the upside is less offensive mistakes like picks/pick sixes, less possessions, clock continuously moving.
It's worked more often than not the past decade. Early in Fitz's career, it didn't work quite as well when we had big leads at halves of several games and those leads evaporated by the end of the game.
I agree with you. Well stated.
It isn't that Fitz abhors covering the spread. He just doesn't care about it - as opposed to every school in the SEC, who seem perfectly willing to risk losing a game because they were trying to cover the spread for the gamblers. Do they ever take a knee when they are winning but haven't covered? I stopped watching the SEC entirely for that reason.
Yeah - there is an element by which it tends to lead to a better record of games <= 7 pts - because once we get ahead in the 2nd half or especially 4th quarter he doesn't show much interest in extending a lead beyond 1 score, so the games where we are the better team we tend to win by 7 pts or less. If we are the worse team, then the other team will keep pressing to score more and extend the lead. As people have noted it has worked more often than not. Still not sure it's the right strategy. Or at least not in all circumstances, not as frequently as he uses it.
I still have bad memories of that awful Illinois season-ending game where I think we were up 21-0 and then he started putting in some backups and basically stopped trying to score. They almost came back. Thankfully Paddy Fisher bailed us out with an INT and we held on by the skin of our teeth. But that was a game we should have won by 3 scores or more, we were way better than them if we didn't take our foot off the gas so early and so strongly.
It also suggests that Fitz' highest goal each year is the win the BIG. To win the BIG, all that matters is W-L record. However, if you have higher goals, such as playoffs and high national rankings, those are based on subjective opinions and, therefore, require some style points - i.e., impressive score differentials - especially against weak opponents. The fact that Fitz doesn't seem to care about this, suggests to me that he is not that interested in rankings or playoff positioning (especially as the CFP expands).
Now, having said all that, I'm not sure I disagree with him. I think he knows his program and knows its limits. But if he were to win the whole BIG and get left out of the playoffs because we didn't blow out Miami, OH or Illinois, leading the committee to put in a one-loss Alabama over us, then he may regret it.
If NU manages to win the B1G, I can't see a way they aren't in the playoffs, style points or not. It would mean climbing over perennial playoff contender OSU, plus name brands Michigan, PSU and MSU. In the future 12 team playoff the conference Winner will be a lock.
If we barely beat OSU while C.J. Stroud is out with an injury. Then we win a fluky game against Michigan State in the BIG Championship, while Alabama steam rolls everybody, but splits the season series with Georgia, I could imagine a scenario where one-loss Alabama and Georgia both leapfrog us. Notre Dame is probably not going to challenge this year and neither is Cincinnati, so that makes things a little easier.
(Are we seriously having this debate??)
The only way it's theoretically possible is if we repeat what happened in 2018 when we lost 3 OOC games (Akron Duke and then ND) and 1 crossover game so go into the conf title 8-4 despite being 8-1 in conference. That said, if we had beaten OSU in that game then I still think that would make us comfortably one of the top 6 conference champions at 9-4 with a sweep of the B1G West and a win over OSU - we were ranked 21 going into that game and I think would have been about 15 after a win? There is almost no chance there would be 6 other non-B1G conf champions ranked higher, that would require 2 G5 teams plus the Pac12 champ to all be above #15 (in addition to SEC ACC Big12 which based on recent history should comfortably be above 15). So in that situation we didn't have a chance of making the 4-team playoff, but we would still most likely be in a 12-team playoff.