College Football Picks: Notre Dame at Michigan

There’s no second-guessing which premier matchup takes the cake in college football’s second week. USC heads to Columbus to take on Ohio State at the Horseshoe, so there will be enough coverage of this Top-10 collision. Get a HUGE $500 FREE bonus from BetUS.

With that said, we’re going to take a peek at another key tilt, our matchup of the week is the Fighting Irish facing off against the Wolverines. Both of these teams looked dominant in their first games of the season, and now the heat is on for the two prestigious programs to see which can keep their progress heading in the right driection by picking up the win here.

Charlie Weis likely couldn’t have expected a better way to the season last week against Nevada. Granted, Nevada couldn’t muster a score of any kind throughout the contest, but it was the solid and fatal passing game that prospered under quarterback Jimmy Clausen. The junior, who is finally living up to the hype, passed for 315 yards on 15-of-18 and four touchdowns. His wideouts Michael Floyd and Golden Tate look like a fairly high impact duo, while tight end Kyle Rudolph is physically talented enough to reign at both catching passes and blocking. The rushing game, though, still appears shady, and 178 yards via the run against a rocky Wolf Pack defense still doesn’t mean a whole lot. Still, Notre Dame was able to cover as 14.5-point chalk in front of their home faithful.

The Wolverines, just the same, suprised their fans, but it was the new faces that did the most to seize the allure of the U of M admirers. True freshman quarterback Tate Forcier tossed three TDs and led the offense for the majority of the game, not making any slips. Another new star coming on strong is the speed merchant Denard Robinson, who got some hype in the preseason for not tying his shoes when playing. Seemingly he doesn’t need to, as a sizeable 43-yard dash and score displayed he acknowledges precisely what to do when the ball is in his hand. Similar to the Irish, Michigan covered the spread, as a 31-7 victory surpassed the 13 points they were favored at home to Western Michigan.

Now on to this matchup. And the determining factor with two offenses that can both light up the scoreboard should be the defenses and which outfit is more capable of showing up when called upon. Personally, and this may be me being biased towards Michigan, the Wolverines have a swifter and sounder defensive unit. I think they can get more heat on the quarterback, and the secondary looks more likely to be able to stop the other’s the passing game. And that will be the determining factor, as Weis will sure enough be aggressive in marching down the field and see how able Clausen can be in tearing up the defensive backs of the Wolverines for some action in the passing game.

The Fighting Irish come in as 3.5-point road chalk. However the point spread can be found at 3 if you compare between books. I would think keep steady between 3 and 3.5, and that could be key, as this could be a close game the whole way up in Michigan. The dog has cashed all but two of the previous 10 games in this series, but the Irish are 7-3 ATS in the past 10 versus Michigan. The Irish’s last victory in Ann Arbor was in 2005, and U of M has won four of the past five at home over Notre Dame. No total has been published yet, but if I had to make out a guess, I would guess around 44 or 45. Cash in with Doc Sports if you want winning football picks this weekend.

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