Best bet to take in the Michigan vs. Northwestern game

This weekend Michigan will take on Northwestern at Wrigley Field in Chicago. So far this year Northwestern is 5-4 overall and 3-3 in Big Ten Conference play. In Conference play, they’ve beaten UCLA, Penn State, and Purdue. They’ve lost to Oregon, Nebraska, and USC.

Michigan so far this year is 7-2 overall and 5-1 in Conference play with the only loss in the Big Ten coming at USC. Both teams have played common opponents of Purdue, Nebraska, and USC. Northwestern has actually played those opponents almost the exact same as Michigan has as they beat Purdue by 19, lost to Nebraska in a close game, and lost at USC by double digits. The similar performances against common opponents suggest the game might be a fairly even matchup this weekend between the Wildcats and the Wolverines.

The current Sports book line for the Michigan vs. Northwestern game is at -11.5 in favor of the Wolverines. My favorite set of public power ratings, the KFord Ratings, has Northwestern’s offense power rated as the 81st best offense in D1 football and their defense as the 47th best defense in D1 football. Overall it has Northwestern at 56th in the country as a 3.3 power rating, which means it would be a 3.3 point favorite on a neutral field against the exactly average college football team.

As for Michigan, it has Michigan’s offense as the 37th best offense in the country and the 10th best defense in the country. Overall it slots the Wolverines at 16th in the country with a power rating of 15.9, meaning it would be a 15.9 point favorite against the exactly average college football team.

To get the projected total on a neutral field (which the game this weekend technically is), you take Michigan’s power rating of 15.9 and subtract Northwestern’s power rating of 3.3 and you’d get a projected spread of 12.6. Given that most of the sports books have this at 11.5, this set of power ratings think this spread should be one more point in Michigan's favor.

In terms of the best bet for this game, I’m going to lean slightly to Northwestern's side of the spread and go with the +11.5 for the Wildcats because I just don’t think Michigan is the type of team to pull away from many Big Ten opponents. For me to project them to cover this spread would mean they would've had to have made big improvements during their bye week this past week and I'm just not willing to believe that until I see it first.

They couldn’t really pull away from bottom half Big Ten teams in Michigan State and Purdue the last two games, and Northwestern is a better team than both of those teams are. I think this score will end up being something close to a 24-14 Michigan win which would mean Northwestern would cover that +11.5.

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