Week 10 was another terrific week of college football, with compelling games and exciting finishes from start to finish. We bounced back from a couple of middling weeks with a 3-1 Saturday in the column — bringing us to 17-14 over the past 9 weeks. I’ve said all season long that regression was to be expected after we cashed at an unsustainable 63% rate a year ago, but we got back on track last we ek so let’s keep it going!
We have a very compelling slate ahead of us, including massive games in the Big Ten Pac-12 and SEC. With Saturday rapidly approaching, here is a look at my best bets for Week 11 of the college football season. And remember, you can check out all of our CFB predictions for the Week 11 games.
Penn State Nittany Lions +5.5 vs Michigan Wolverines (-110)
There’s so much at play in this game, including a lot of unknowns. We know that Michigan is a very good team, but we don't have many relevant data points on the Wolverines given that their strength of schedule is ranked 111th in the country to this point. Jim Harbaugh's team has been dominant in all phases of the game, particularly on offense (2nd in EPA per play, 4th in early downs EPA) as J.J McCarthy appears to be much improved from a season ago. Conversely, Penn State's offense had been a major concern for me coming out of the Ohio State game and that carried over into a poor performance against Indiana the following week. However, Drew Allar and the rest of the offense seemed to finally cut it loose and generate explosive plays through the air in the final moments of that game to seal the victory.