Minnesota Football Game Predictions: Ohio State Buckeyes

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Models

TCU and Ole Miss remain top of the ranks after beating opponents of, ahem, varying quality; classic SEC to schedule an FCS team in between tough conference match-ups! Mississippi State tumbles a bit for not crushing an FCS team by the expected margin. Algorithms are cruel and exacting, as I wouldn't fault the Bulldogs for only winning by 29 with a daunting visit to Tuscaloosa upcoming, but this isn't a feelingsball post.

M&B continues to troll #FSUtwitter. Luckily only one member of #FSUtwitter will read this.

First, there's nothing like drubbing a rival by 37 when you're the underdog! The Gophers made a huge leap in the ranks and sit upon their highest rating all year, making up for all the lost ground after Illinois and then some.

That said, Minnesota will play their first (at the time) top 25 M&B team. The Buckeyes are 6th in the rankings, consistently climbing all the way up from 45th after the Virginia Tech game. Based upon current ratings, this is the second most difficult opponent to date behind #1 TCU, because FROOOOOOOOOGGGSSS.

Senior Day/Snow Bowl projections:

So the Buckeyes are really quite good, and on a roll. The crazy thing about Ohio State is they've played consistently like a Top 10 squad for most of the season, and yet they only now seem to be reaching the apex of media love after beating the Spartans (understandably). There's significant risk of folks overanalyzing both teams in the match-up based upon the last week, and that really doesn't favor either team in particular.

Meanwhile, last week in M&B thought leadership:

In English, I think the TCF Bank Stadium HFA to Minnesota may be different in November, in 35 degree weather, against a primary rival than it would in late August against a scrub. That may bring the expected margin and probability closer to a PICK'EM or a 1 point Gopher win, as the F/+ projections suggest*.

Update: I built an inferential model before the Iowa game using F/+ ratings, temperature and wind speed at kickoff, and several factors such as a rivalry and/or night game from all 34 contests against FBS opponents played at TCF Bank Stadium. I'm not comfortable drawing detailed conclusions based upon sample size (generally want a sample of 50+ observations at a minimum) but I am confident in a few things. Namely, kickoff temperature and wind speed inside the stadium are non-negligble factors on the eventual margin of victory/loss, controlling for other factors like strength of the opponent and Minnesota's F/+ rating.

The Bank's cold weather HFA is real, in other words. How that plays out on Saturday and over time remains to be seen. Also important: this isn't a rivalry game. Believe it or not, Minnesota plays much better than expected against Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan at home compared to the rest of their opponents.

Sims? Nah, let's wait until after this week (again).

Bottles

Cleveland based Great Lakes Brewery is a favorite of M&B, producing a number of worthy selections regardless if the opponent had any ties to Ohio. Black Out Stout. Nosferatu. Erie Monster. Commodore Perry. Edmund Fitzgerald. Eliot Ness. The list of quality offerings goes on.

But nope, not going to pick an Ohio beer today.

Sitting at 6-0 at home, 25th in the CFP Rankings and about to play the first legitimate Top 25, nationally promoted ABC time slot game in quite awhile, I'm feeling naturally proud of the home state. I'm obliged to go with a homer selection here, one fitting the expected conditions of Saturday's contest.

That's why the bottle de jour is Schell's Snowstorm, a favorite of mine each and every year. This iteration of Snowstorm is a Grand Cru, which translates from French to read "great growth." If that's not a double entendre metaphor for the season and last week, I can't help you.