It's That Game Again: Is This Harbaugh's Year?

Dude's reaping $6million a year to give all who bleed Maize & Blue an adrenaline rush.

Jim Harbaugh's doing what he can:

• He took spring practice 'way off-campus, and if potential recruits wanted to check out the show, he'd be fine with that;
• When the Ivory Tower killjoys banned that, Coach decided spring practice would be a special educational opportunity if it was held in Italy.

Yup, Harbaugh's done a bunch. Except beat top teams.

Especially that team:

We'll start by looking at both against-the-spread options:

Bet on Ohio State -12.5 because …

The Buckeyes have a 59-48 lead in the all-time rivalry with Michigan. That includes winning 12 of the last 13 meetings, including the last five in a row.

Ohio State rolled all over Illinois in their 52-14 blowout win this past weekend, although they narrowly failed to cover the chalk as an insane 41-point home favorite.

QB JT Barrett tossed two TD passes in the win, while RB Mike Weber added 108 rushing yards and two scores on just 11 carries. The Buckeyes’ defense limited the allegedly Fighting Illini’ to just 1-for-12 success on third downs, and Ohio State won the time of possession battle by over 15 minutes.

But what the hell. It was Illinois.

Bet on Michigan +12.5 because …

The Wolverines are 3-1 against the spread over the last four meetings, keeping games close as an underdog.

Michigan had their three-game winning streak snapped in their humbling 24-10 loss to Wisconsin this past Sat 18 Nov, even though third-string QB Brandon Peters had a decent performance in relief of John O’Korn. Dude passed for 157 yards with no turnovers.

Unfortunately for them, the Wolverines were held to just 58 rushing yards by the Badgers' powerful defense. It showed on the scoreboard. In fact, Harbaugh's crew has been limited to 13 points or less in all three of their losses this season.

So ...

While Michigan does have an elite defense that limits the opposition to just 17.1 points per game to rank a stellar 11th nationally, I’m really surprised that 43% of public bettors like the Wolverines to cover the chalk against Ohio State.

The Wolverines are really offensively challenged this season, and the Buckeyes average almost 19 points per game more than their longtime Big Ten conference rivals in this affair.

Here's our ATS pick ...

While I’m not real fond of Ohio State as a CFP contender and think they blew their shot at any opportunity by getting blown out of the water by Iowa a couple of weeks back, I do like the Buckeyes to get the big win and ATS cover in this one.

ATS pick: Ohio State -12.5

Result: Ohio State 31, Michigan 20 ... Wolverines cover

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Sportbet Columnist: Josh Bailey

Aspiring to become the Mark Twain of sports writing, Josh has been labelled as the up-&-coming sports writer of the year by absolutely nobody and the new heavy hitter in sports handicapping by his mother.