Ricky Dimon
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The Michigan Wolverines have been the talk of the college football world in recent weeks. Amid lots of controversy surrounding a sign-stealing scandal, the noise grew even louder on Friday when head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended from the sidelines by the Big Ten for Michigan’s last 3 regular-season games. That includes Saturday’s showdown against the Penn State Nittany Lions, who are 8-1 overall and 5-1 in the conference (only loss to Ohio State). With an upset victory on Saturday, Penn State would be right back in the College Football Playoff picture.
Here is my Same Game Parlay for a very intriguing Big Ten matchup, which will be televised on FOX starting at 12:00 pm ET. Also be sure to check out our full Michigan vs Penn State predictions.
Penn State ML (+160)
Over 44.5 (-115)
Nicholas Singleton to score a touchdown (+140)
Parlay odds: +649
Part of the value in a Same Game Parlay, of course, is that all of its components can be correlated if you so choose. That is the entire plan here, as Penn State running back Nicholas Singleton scoring a touchdown would obviously work well with a Nittany Lions win in addition to an over 44.5 play. Let’s break down each of the legs.
Penn State ML (+160)
Michigan is definitely a very good team, but we don’t have many relevant data points given that its strength of schedule has been weak at best (ranked 111th in the country). The Wolverines have been dominant on both sides of the ball, but now there are questions – and not just because of the schedule. Harbaugh has been suspended for 3 games, so we won’t be on the sidelines on Saturday. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for this game, but all of the distractions in the decent days and weeks also cannot have helped. As for Penn State, quarterback Drew Allar has the offense heating up (finally). Last week against Maryland he completed nearly 75% of his passes and threw 4 touchdowns.
The Nittany Lions’ defense has been outstanding all season, ranking inside the top 5 in nearly every metric you can find. Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz’s unit is 5th in the nation in EPA per pass defense, 1st in passing success rate, 1st in early-downs EPA, 2nd in points per quality possession and 3rd in net points per drive (CFB-Graphs). Sound the upset alert!
Over 44.5 (-115)
This is not a big number, so these offenses should be able to do enough to take the game over the total. Penn State has taken major strides in its downfield passing game over the last 2 weeks, which makes this offense a lot more dynamic and should put less pressure on the O-line to get a consistent push against this imposing Michigan defensive front. If Allar can remain efficient and effective when throwing the ball 15 yards or more down the field, this becomes a dangerous attack.
Meanwhile, we saw Michigan put up more than 500 yards of total offense and score 41 points at home against this Penn State defense a season ago. While an improved PSU defense and a raucous Happy Valley crowd should help, Penn State probably has to score at least 24 and maybe even 27 to win this game. As such, I like the correlation of Penn State winning and the over.
Nicholas Singleton to score a touchdown (+140)
You pretty much cannot pass the ball against the Wolverines. They are #1 in the nation in passing defense, allowing just 141.3 yards per game through the air and 5.7 yards per pass attempt. UM has 3 times as many interceptions (12) as passing touchdowns allowed (4). In other words, it’s a safe bet that Penn State is going to feature the ground game on Saturday.
Singleton has already scored 7 TDs this season and he has had double-digit carries in 7 of 9 contests. He got 20 total touches against Iowa 2 weeks ago and got 27 against Northwestern in late September. I expect a heavy workload for Singleton, which should lead to another score.
Check out all our Week 11 picks and predictions in our College Football Betting Guide
