Game Analysis

Strong Opinion – ILLINOIS (-13)  43   Rutgers  24

Rutgers played their best games of the season from the line of scrimmage last week and still only beat Purdue by 3 points while giving up 7.0 yards per play to the struggling Boilermakers’ offense. Rutgers is now allowing 8.4 yards per play (to teams that would average 5.9 yppl against an average defense) and Illinois, unlike Purdue last week, has an offense that can take advantage of their many scoring opportunities.

Illinois has been 1.0 yppl better than average offensively this season and they scored 45 points and 43 points against the two worst FBS defenses that they’ve faced (Duke and Purdue), who both average defensively. The only bad defense that Illinois faced was FCS team Western Illinois and the Illini scored 52 points in that game. Rutgers, meanwhile, has only faced two good offensive teams (Washington and Oregon) and they gave up 590 yard at 10.5 yppl to Washington and 752 yards at 13.0 yppl to Oregon. I actually threw out that Oregon game from my model (Rutgers is still 2.0 yppl worse than average in their other games) and the math still projects Illinois to score 43 points in this game.

Rutgers has a pretty good offense that’s averaged 5.8 yppl against teams that would allow 5.2 yppl to an average FBS attack, but the Illini have been 0.6 yppl better than average defensively and the Scarlet Knights have averaged only 22.4 points in 5 Big-10 games.

Illinois is a Strong Opinion at -13.5 points or less.