The Introduction: Give and Take

Devon Cajuste plays on my co-ed flag football team.

“Who?” you might ask.

Devon played football for the Stanford Cardinal from 2011-2015. He was recruited by Jim Harbaugh. He was a flex TE who accumulated 91 receptions, 1596 yards, and 14 touchdowns in his collegiate career. He bounced around different NFL practice squads for a few years (the 49ers, Packers, and Browns). He was a “star” on HBO’s Hard Knocks when he was with the Browns. He officially retired from the NFL in early 2019 in order to, at least according to Wikipedia, “pursue spiritual healing and his passion for crystals.” (He has yet to confirm to me that this is the reason he retired. I have yet to figure out how to bring up a ridiculous topic like healing crystals without referencing his Wikipedia page like a nerd. Also, we just play one hour of flag football together on Sundays; it’s not like we’re really friends.)

Having a former NFL-practice-squad receiver on your flag football team is, admittedly, not fair, but we wouldn’t be total slouches if he wasn’t on the squad. We have three other D-I athletes (a pitcher from Stanford, a runner also from Stanford, and a pitcher from USC). The rest of our team isn’t so accomplished, but we aren’t tripping over our feet. We have a tall, jacked, coordinated, and fast guy. We have a short, not jacked, not coordinated, but exceedingly fast (think 4.5 forty) guy. My best friend on the team––an angry guy from Philly named Dave––started at halfback in high school. I lettered in hockey and lacrosse in high school, then played on a nationally competitive D-III Ultimate team in college. (I’m slow as a glacier, but have more than above-average hand-eye coordination and “intangibles”.)  Our perhaps least-scary player is a scrawny 30-something year old guy who was only a very talented, lower-weight high school wrestler (meaning: he knows how to use his body and is pretty damn quick).

But to say that Devon––who we call “Juice”––isn’t a total game-changer would be a lie.

On offense, Juice plays WR. He is, quite literally, uncoverable. He’s one of those Even If He’s Covered He’s Really Not players when you play flag football. Anyone who is his height is slower than him, and anyone who’s his speed is shorter than him. On top of that, he remains ridiculously ripped. If you’re playing QB and you’re in trouble, a guaranteed option for a positive play is just to chuck it up to Juice and let him high point the ball.

On defense, Juice plays safety. He is, quite literally, a safety blanket. With him covering the deep part of the field, everyone else is able to press up and force the QB to throw it 20 yards downfield. Since this is still flag football, most of the QBs are only mildly good (at best) at throwing the deep ball, which gives Juice plenty of time to read the play, cover the length of the field, and intercept/bat down the ball. Even if he doesn’t manage to get there in time, his presence as a deep safety is enough to either (a) scare the receiver into deciding not to catch the ball, or (b) scare the other team into not running any deep routes whatsoever.

I’ve learned a lot from Juice in the past year or so playing flag football with him. This isn’t necessarily because Juice is an incredibly intelligent football player. (An example? He used to be the pass rusher when we played defense, which, after Five Mississippis, was certainly terrifying for opposing QBs, but not the best use of his talents. It took many weeks of Dave and I trying to figure out the best way to tell him that his talents would be better used as a safety before we asked him to make the switch. Since then, he’s complimented us profusely for recognizing that this gave us a competitive advantage. This note came from one guy who played high school football and another guy who broke his finger trying out for QB in 7th grade and never played competitive football again. [More on that terrible happening one day, I’m sure.])

No, I’ve learned a lot from Juice because there’s a world in which every single time we snap the ball on offense we throw it to Juice. If you can put it in the right place, he is an unstoppable receiving machine. Don’t believe me? Check out his hilariously-edited highlights on YouTube from Stanford, and then imagine him doing that against normal humans on a Sunday evening.

But, in truth, you can’t just give the ball to your best player every single play. You can’t do that in flag football and you can’t do that in real football either. I mean, you can, but you shouldn’t. Our offense truly does work best when we try to incorporate everyone: when we find our female track star in the flat and let her go to work; when we hit our uncoordinated but speedy guy on a crossing route and hope he can dash upfield; hell, even when we let me or Dave find a hole in the opposing team’s zone and sit down for an 8 yard catch that ends up bruising our chest cause one of the D-I pitchers threw it unnecessarily hard and we caught it on the pectoral.

When you spread the ball around, it does two things: (1) It makes it easier for your best player to get open. If we threw to Juice every time, eventually other teams would recognize that we were throwing to Juice every time, and they’d put everyone on him, and say, “Well, you’re not going to do anything else.” By hitting other receivers regularly, the other team recognizes that they can’t key in on one person. It keeps them spread out and on their toes. (2) It also keeps our team generally happy. Imagine being on a team––nay, a flag football team––where you didn’t see a target the whole year because someone else on the team was (vastly) better than you were. That would suck. Why would you play on that team unless literally the only thing you cared about was trying to win, in which case you’d still be wrong?

I was thinking about this this past weekend when my flag football team smoked another team 54-8 to assure our first seed and first round bye in the playoffs. We didn’t win by such an extreme margin just because we threw to Juice––we did this by spreading the ball around to all the players we had on the field, getting everyone involved, keeping everyone happy, and winning as a team, rather than just as an individual player.

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this other than the fact that Michigan kicked Penn State’s ass and used at least two RBs to do that.

The Week Before

Game with Bet Team in CAPS (Bet) [Win/Loss/Push] (Result) [Units]

Minnesota at Illinois (U 39.5) [Loss] (40) [-10 units]

AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! Are you kidding me!? A half a freakin point!? On Saturday morning, it was announced that Tommy DeVito would in fact start the game––no Artur Sitkowski turned out to be a huge game changer because, you know, Illinois scored. Regardless, the under still easily could’ve hit. Minnesota scored their second touchdown after returning the second half kickoff all the way down to the Illinois 4 yard line. (I may be making excuses here, but to me it looked like one of the Minnesota blockers was half-holding, half-riding-one-of-the-gunner’s-hips and restricting him from plugging the lane that Quentin Redding eventually took to dash down the field.) With three minutes left in the game, Illinois kicked a 30 yard field goal to hit the over. (Live, that field goal looked like it might not have snuck inside the post, but I guess it did.) Well, sometimes you get your heart broken by some crazy stuff.

Penn State at Michigan (U 51.5) [Loss] (58) [-10 units]

This is probably the best way to lose a bet as a Michigan fan: the over hits because the run game is so unstoppable that even when they’re trying to run out the clock they score. The under still could’ve hit if Penn State didn’t have three huge plays lead to their 17 points: (1) the Sean Clifford option keeper for 62 yards to the 5 yard line sets up their first TD; (2) the batted pick-six is the second TD; and (3) the Clifford dime down the sidelines to Harrison Wallace III (wait, who?) for 48 yards to set up their FG. Otherwise, the PSU offense was totally inert, putting up just 3.2 yards per play if you remove those two aforementioned big gains.

MARYLAND at Indiana (-11) [Loss] (-5) [-10 units]

Here’s the situation: the Terrapins have just gone up by 11 points with 2:11 left in the game. Then, in just one minute and 17 seconds, Connor Freaking Bazelak leads the Hoosiers 75 yards down the field in just eight plays to screw the push. What’s even more gut-punching is that on two of those plays, Maryland’s secondary deflected the ball into the hands of Hoosier receivers for big gains. This was Bazelak’s best game of the season––highest completion percentage (69.1), highest yards per attempt (7.0), and most touchdowns (3)––and Maryland should be ashamed of itself for letting that happen, but they should be even more disheartened by Taulia Tagovailoa’s injury, especially considering how excellent of a game he played.

WISCONSIN at Michigan State (-7.5) [Loss] (+6) [-10 units]

At halftime, I went for a run feeling pretty good about the state of this prediction. Wisconsin was up 14-7. Michigan State had only managed to score after a Jacoby Windmon interception at the Badger 11 yard line on an under thrown ball by Graham Mertz. It didn’t look like the Spartans had much of an answer to Braelon Allen or Chimere Dike, and they were playing undisciplined football, walking the Badgers up and down the field with penalty after penalty. According to ESPN, Wisconsin had a 74.1% chance to win going into the half: to me, that felt like more. Then I came back from my run and this game was going to overtime and Jay Shaw (61.1 coverage grade on PFF) was unable to even break up Jayden Reed’s very-break-up-able ball to Keon Coleman in the end zone and Braelon Allen was fumbling and Jayden Reed was snatching the ball away from Richardo Hallman (61.0 coverage grade on PFF) and… ya know, I just really wanted Mel Tucker to win as few Big Ten games as possible––imagine if he won two Big Ten games this year: then each Big Ten win would be worth $4.75 million. Amazing.

Nebraska at PURDUE (-13 / U 58.5) [Loss / Loss] (-6 / 80) [-10 units]

I really wish Michigan was playing Purdue this year because it would dump a big ol’ bucket of cold water on everyone’s Devin Mockobee hype. Nearly every successful run Mockobee had against Nebraska came from his tackles completely caving in the Cornhusker edges and letting him gallivant freely down the field. Certainly, Mockobee runs with the passion of a Jew fighting for Judea against the Seleucid Empire, but that passion wouldn’t mean squiddly-dwat when you’re trying to edge guys like Mike Morris and Jaylen Harrell and Mike Sainristl and Junior Colson. That being said, it’ll be fun to play Nebraska, too, because someone has to show Trey Palmer what coverage looks like. Also, their lines? Yikes. Gonna feast.

The Overview

Obviously, I went 0-5 this week and lost 45 units. Feel free to fade me going forward. But let me try to spin it for you. In two of the games, I advocated for the under, and the under had a very good chance of hitting if not for Tommy DeVito suddenly starting and one of the oddest pick-sixes in recent memory. In two other games, Indiana and Nebraska backdoor covered because (a) there were two consecutive passes deflected right into Hoosier hands, and (b) Purdue’s secondary is actually butt. And in the final game, a dreadful Michigan State team beat a dreadful Wisconsin team in OT––the game never would’ve gone to OT if the Badgers had targeted their best receiver (Chimere Dike) more than 4 times in regulation against what everyone knows is a really bad coverage secondary. Maybe the gods aren’t on my side.

The Week Ahead

A quick reminder that I use the Vegas Insider Consensus (from vegasinsider.com) spreads, totals, and money lines. They are current as of the time the diary is posted. You might be able to get better odds/spreads/totals/money lines if you look at multiple different sports books.

Also, I want to stress that this diary is ideally intended more for entertainment than it is for profitable advice. Do your own research. Take my words with many grains of salt, because I truthfully have no clue what I'm talking about. You’ve been warned. Gamble responsibility.

Iowa at Ohio State (-29) [Total: 48.5]

When the Hawkeyes have the ball: A question about the only thing on this offense that works: does Sam LaPorta like being on the Iowa Hawkeyes? It must generally suck to play with everyone else on his side of the ball, but he has twice as many targets as anyone else on the roster. What’s more, his target share is somehow increasing––two weeks ago against Illinois, Petras threw 16 of his 36 passes to LaPorta. That’s 44.4%! And while he “works” in a way that everything else about this dysfunctional, uninspired unit doesn’t, it’s not like he’s brilliant. LaPorta has dropped 4 balls (11.8% of his targets), caught just 2 of his 10 contested targets, fumbled the ball, and made only 6 guys miss this year. This week, he goes up against a Buckeye secondary that’s weak on the edges but relatively strong down the middle. Their three most played safeties (Ronnie Hickman, Lathan Ransom, and Josh Proctor) all grade out pretty well in coverage per Pro Football Focus. Linebacker Tommy Eichenberg––their best defender per PFF––doesn’t man up so well, but he’s only been thrown at 9 times this year for 47 yards, so it kind of feels hard to call him a vulnerability. Maybe LaPorta gets the Hawkeyes downfield on one drive, but nothing else will. Per Football Outsiders (and the eye test), the Hawkeyes’ line stats are really bad and the Buckeyes’ line stats are pretty good. It’s hard to see double-digit points for this offense against this defense.

When the Buckeyes have the ball: The best offense (1st in SP+ and FEI) vs the best defense (1st in SP+ and 2nd in FEI, so maybe not the best, but one of the best). The thing about football is that the game is set up so that you CAN score points. If you score more points than the other team, you win the game. Thus, scoring points is important. It’s a lot easier to score points on offense than it is on defense. The Buckeyes have an offense that scores a lot of points. The Hawkeyes have a defense that scores more points than their offense with frequency. That’s not a good thing. Do I think they can score enough to cover the spread? They’ve put up 52, 49, and 49 against Wisconsin, Rutgers, and Michigan State. Iowa has allowed 10, 27, and 9 points against Rutgers, Michigan, and Illinois. Assuming Iowa scores 10 points, they’d need to hit 40. Four touchdowns and four field goals? Or five touchdowns and two field goals? Or six touchdowns? Is Ohio State’s offense two touchdowns better than Michigan’s? I don’t know, man. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an “immovable object” (quotes because football defense is inherently harder than football offense)?

Bottom Line: I have two doubts. Can OSU score as much on Iowa as they need to to cover the spread? And can Iowa score at all? That makes me feel like I’m doing what I’m usually doing when I’m betting on Big Ten football.

What should you bet? Under 48.5

What if you like it spicy? Parlay with Ohio State (-29)

Indiana at Rutgers (-3) [Total: 45]

When the Hoosiers have the ball: I’ve watched so much more Connor Bazelak than I ever needed to. I bought a Big Ten Plus Football pass for this column after the first week of writing it, and have tried to watch every minute of every game that happens that weekend, plus some backlogging on teams I’m not familiar with. So I’ve now watched about 240 minutes worth of Connor Bazelak playing QB and it’s just hideous. The dude is throwing picks left and right (6 in his last 4 games). What’s more, anything downfield comes flying off his back foot, launched a bajillion feet into the air. Thus, it’s just screens for him, cause he can’t handle anything more. Nearly 15% of his throws don’t travel past the line of scrimmage. (For reference, Spencer Petras is at 11.7%, Ryan Hilinski is at 11.0%, and Graham Mertz is at 8.4%. [There are some wild outliers like Payton Thorne and Tommy DeVito being in the 20s, but at least their coaches know what their QBs are.]) And so smart defenses press Connor. And Rutgers, while they may not be particularly talented, is a smart defense. This is not good for Shaun Shivers, either, considering he has only made three tacklers miss in four Big Ten games so far this season. Rutgers tackles well enough (just 34 total missed tackles the whole year, and they grade out 5th best on PFF [Michigan is 1st]) and the only game in which they allowed more than 14 points (other than against OSU) was the first game of the year against BC. Expect this to look like overmatched high school football.

When the Scarlet Knights have the ball: Is there a world where Rutgers gets two long passing touchdowns? If they’re smart (and that’s a big if) they’ll just play Noah Vedral. Both Vedral and Evan Simon threw 15 balls last week and completed 6 each, but Simon also threw three to the other team. Vedral is better, but he’s not good––a large chunk of his yards from last week came when throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage (hi, Connor). Vedral went 2 for 4 on throws 20+ yards downfield against the Cornhuskers, and had a 33 yard gain and a 34 yard gain. Against the Hoosiers, that sounds like two touchdowns to me, since this secondary can’t cover the dinner table with a table cloth, their pass rush couldn’t make it home if you left them a trail of bread crumbs, and when they tackle they wrap up about as well as using a wash cloth for a bath towel. Can that happen? Sure. Will it happen? I really hope so. If there’s one game where Aron Cruickshank can put himself on the level of other Good Wide Receivers On Not Good Teams (Trey Palmer, Chimere Dike, Jayden Reed) he needs to announce himself this week.

Bottom Line: The Hoosiers rightly don’t take deep shots and also are not very good at stopping deep shots cause maybe they don’t ever practice against them. Aron Cruickshank puts up a big night (he’s caught three of six balls thrown to him 20+ yards, and scored two touchdowns).

What should you bet? Bet Rutgers (-3)

What if you like it spicy? Parlay that with Aron Cruickshank OVER receiving yardage

Purdue at Wisconsin (-2.5) [Total: 51]

When the Boilermakers have the ball: Who is going to stop Charlie Jones? Jones struggled to get anything going against the Golden Gophers and the Terrapins, then ran rampant last weekend against the Cornhuskers with 12 catches, 132 yards, and two touchdowns. That kind of feels like the stat line I expect to see when he plays Wisconsin’s not good corners this weekend who let Jayden Reed and Keon Coleman combine for 14 catches, 196 yards, and two touchdowns on just 16 targets. They bullied the hell out of CB Ricardo Hallman in particular who allowed all three touchdowns on just five targets. To think that Chuck Sizzle and Aidan O’Connell won’t exploit this would be a foolish thought. What’s more, Payne Durham is a solid receiving TE going up against an LB core that’s strength is not in pass coverage this year. However, as I’ve said, I’m really not sold on Devon Mockobee (see: The Week Before), but the Purdue offensive line shouldn’t be able to cave in Wisconsin’s edges the way they did against the Cornhuskers. I’m starting to become extremely dubious of any PFF grades (see: Wisconsin is apparently a better coverage team than PSU, despite the fact that Wisconsin has one starting DB with a coverage grade above 68.0), but Nick Herbig and C.J. Goetz are way better than anything Nebraska had. Gains on the ground should be hard to come by, but the passing game should be enough to keep the Boilermakers moving down the field.

When the Badgers have the ball: This year, the Badgers have played three bad defenses (ISU, NMSU, and NW), three good defenses (Wazzu, OSU, and Illinois), and MSU. Against bad teams, Mertz is good: 60%, 12.8 YPA, 9 TDs, 1 INT. Against good teams (and MSU), Mertz is a woeful disappointment: 56%, 6.1 YPA, 6 TDs, 5 INTs. My diagnosis is that Mertz’s throws are always a step behind where they should be, so, when he’s playing against solid coverage, he’s in trouble. If his receivers have acres of space, it’s no big deal, cause they can slow up and make the snag. If they don’t have that space, watch out. Last week, Mertz threw a pick to MSU’s Jacoby Windmon. On that play, TE Jack Eschenbach has plenty of separation on Windmon, but Mertz sidearms it and, rather than leading Eschenbach, forces the TE to spin around to try to catch it. Windmon has all the momentum, steals the ball, and sets up MSU’s first TD. Purdue’s coverage unit isn’t exactly gang-busters, but it’s at least a step better than MSU’s. They also stop the run pretty well, which is what Wisconsin wants to do, even if they don’t do it particularly well (I’ve detailed Braelon Allen’s uninspiring production against those same three good teams, and he only put up 4.2 YPC against the Spartans). I like Purdue here, too.

Bottom Line: I don’t understand why Wisconsin is favored in this game after they just lost to Michigan State and Purdue’s beaten Maryland and Nebraska in the last two games. The Boilermakers have offensive matchups they can exploit, and the Badgers have Graham Mertz.

What should you bet? Purdue (+108)

What if you like it spicy? Parlay with whatever OVER you can find on Charlie Jones yards

Northwestern at Maryland (-13.5) [Total: 52.5]

When the Wildcats have the ball: It’s too easy to dookie on the Northwestern offense, so let’s do something different for a change: let’s take a look at some good offensive stats. Oh, look here! Northwestern is 11th in the country in sack rate (2.4%) and 8th in the country in passing down sack rate (1.7%). Hmm… What else… Ah! On 36 rushes between the guards, they’ve averaged over 5 yards per carry. Now, let’s say something nice about the receiving game… Uh… Here we go! Running back Evan Hull averages 9.6 yards per target, which is better than Ronnie Bell. I don’t even have to look to know that I’m going to compliment future first round LT Peter Skoronski––he’s only allowed two pressures on 278 pass blocking plays this year. And QB Ryan Hilinski is 31st in the whole dang country in completions, which means at least you know he’s experienced at doing something right. Thankfully, they get some respite this week to maybe pad their stats further as, before the bye, the Wildcats played against Wisconsin and Penn State. Even though they just let Indiana score the most points they’ve scored this year since playing Idaho, Maryland is probably the third best defense they’ve faced this year, but at least the Wildcats had an extra week to prep for the Terrapins’ 8 man zone drops. Am I optimistic Northwestern will crack double-digits points for the first time in a month? Yes. Would I bet money that happening? Uh…

When the Terrapins have the ball: The big news is obviously the Taulia Tagovailoa injury. Thankfully, for all Big Ten fans who like watching competent Big Ten QBs to help balance out the incompetent ones, it seems as though it’s not nearly as bad as what it looked like it could’ve been in the moment––you can come back from a sprained MCL. As of this writing, Taulia is a game-time decision, but I’m just gonna go ahead and say he’s not playing against the Wildcats. And, truthfully, I’m kind of okay with that? Billy Edwards Jr. looks like a lot of fun. He’s a big kid (6’3” and 210 pounds) and he’s certainly willing to run it––he went 0/3 passing against the Hoosiers (somehow), but led the game-sealing drive with his legs, including a 31 yard dash up the middle as well as a tough looking goal line punch in. What’s more, if there’s any team to break in a new QB against, it’s absolutely this Wildcats secondary. They made Graham Mertz look like CJ Stroud just a few weeks ago, and their stats would be even worse if they hadn’t played against Sean Clifford in a tsunami game. Edwards has enough weapons around him (9 different Maryland receivers have caught TDs) and Northwestern’s pass rush is slow enough (they’re 82nd in sack rate against meh at best competition) that he should be fine.

Bottom Line: I have to scour the Internet to come up with positive things to say about the Wildcats offense, and they’re playing against a solid defense, too. Even if Tagovailoa doesn’t start, Edwards should manage well enough to cover this two touchdown spread.

What should you bet? Maryland (-13.5)

What if you like it spicy? Parlay that with a Billy Edwards anytime touchdown

Minnesota at Penn State (-4.5) [Total: 44.5] (proj. -9.5 and 42.5)

When the Golden Gophers have the ball: If you missed it, an Illinois defender literally punched the Gopher QB Tanner Morgan in the head. (To me, he was probably trying to punch the ball. It looks bad if you slow it down, but so does everything in sports. Why would you ever try to punch a helmeted player in the head? Just, ouch.) This is an important game for the Gophers (if they lose, they can kiss their Big Ten West championship good-bye), but this doesn’t really strike me as a program that’s going to usher a geriatric with brain-trauma back to play against a feisty defense like the Nittany Lions. So, as with the Terrapins, let’s say the starter doesn’t play. Who are we left with? I was high-ish on Billy Edwards, but I’m dubious on Athan Kaliakmanis. The stat line is somehow better and worse than what the tape shows. Kaliakmanis bobbled his first snap, but managed to pick up the first on 4th and inches anyway. He was sacked on the very next play, then threw two incompletions. Minnesota punted. On the next drive, he threw a pretty bad pick on a fade route––there was no air under the ball (think: Joe Milton), and the CB had to make a great play, but it was basically uncatchable for the WR anyway. On the final drive, he threw another pick on a desperation go route. This one I don’t really fault him for, as they were down by 12 with 30 seconds left. He certainly could be a thorn in their side, but maybe all the the Golden Gophers need is for Mo Ibrahim to follow in Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards’ footsteps. For what it’s worth, PFF thinks PSU is the worst run defense in the Big Ten. Maybe Ibrahim breaks a couple big ones to swing the game, but I really don’t love Minnesota’s odds if they fall behind by 10 points at any time in this one.

When the Nittany Lions have the ball: It’s almost midnight on a Thursday, and I’ve had a very long week of grading midterms for my high school history classes, and so I’m going to keep this pretty short and pretty sweet. The best defense the Nittany Lions faced all year was Michigan’s. Minnesota’s defense ranks higher in both SP+ and FEI. Do I think the Golden Gophers are better on defense than the Wolverines are? I don’t think that I do. But do I think they’re easily one of the two best defenses this team has played? Yes. I very much do. I don’t have a lot of faith in this squad to get much of anything going against a pretty good unit. Michigan proved last weekend that to stop Clifford and Co, you don’t need an insane amount of pass rush, you just need to cover pretty well downfield. That’s what the Gophers do. I’m a little skeptical they might get run on a bit, or at least a bit more than Michigan did, but that’s why I’m starting to talk myself into the under. If both run games are the only things that are working on offense, that means this game is going to go by much slower, and it also means that things might stall a bit in the red zone, too.

Bottom Line: This could be a nice game for Ibrahim and PSU’s cadre of young RBs, but I don’t expect a lot through the air, even if Tanner Morgan is back.

What should you bet? Under 44.5

What if you like it spicy? Parlay with OVER whatever you can get for Mo Ibrahim yards

The Conclusion

Once again, thanks for reading. Happy betting and Go Blue!