Free Pick Friday!

By: Rich Douglas

Here's a quick rundown of two games I like for tomorrow


Northwestern +4 at Iowa

-Kain Colter is back for Northwestern and is a complete difference maker for the Wildcats.

-Iowa has had a horrible time this season giving up big plays, and meets a NU team that is healthy and due for a bounceback after a midseason lull.

-Back to that Iowa Defense giving up big plays. Northwestern has historically had success against a the big Hawkeye Defense. They spread the field out, unlike most Big Ten offenses and use players like Mike Trumpy to get through the wide gaps they create.

-Defensive Tackle Sean McEvily is also back and will be the proverbial thorn in the side of power running Mark Weisman.

-Sandwich game: I don't typically care TOO much about this, but we're talking about a team that played Ohio State competitively last week, but lost, and now next week have a big matchup against Wisconsin at home.

Troy +10 at Western Kentucky

-The Sun Belt is having a terrible year and there honestly isn't much of a difference between the teams from top to bottom (excluding miserable Georgia State).

-Corey Robinson is averaging over 8 yards per attempt for Troy. He's completing 71% of his passes and hasn't had a bad game all season.

-For Western, Brandon Doughty is a QB that doesn't do anything great. What I mean by that is he's immobile, and has average downfield accuracy. Even in last week's game where he had only 5 incompletions, Doughty made 2 very bad decisions that led to interceptions.

-While Western's Antonio Andrews is in a league of his own in the Sun Belt, Troy gets beaten by mobile QBs. In their 3 losses, the leading opposing rusher has twice been a QB, and once been a scatback. I'm not saying Andrews won't have success, but they've been doing a decent job preventing big gains in between the tackles.