Vegas Betting Preview: Cincinnati vs Michigan, Free Pick and Odds

After a huge first week matchup against Florida, the Michigan Wolverines come home to Ann Arbor and square off against the visiting Cincinnati Bearcats. Will the Wolverines have an emotional letdown after last week’s big win or will they be able to blow out the Bearcats as most experts predict? Kickoff inside Michigan Stadium is at 12 P.M. ET.

Vegas Betting Lines and NCAAF Game Preview: Cincinnati vs Michigan

This is the first meeting between these two programs and the Bearcats (1-0) are exuding confidence. A big reason for this bewildering confidence comes from their new head coach Luke Fickell who was a co-defensive coordinator for the Ohio State Buckeyes from 2012-2016. Fickell has plenty of experience preparing for and playing against the Wolverines. Unfortunately, his experience means little when Cincinnati’s level of talent is far inferior to Michigan’s.

The #8 Wolverines look to make quick work of the Bearcats and most likely will dispatch of them by halftime if all goes according to plan. While the Bearcats defeated Austin Peay last week, Wolverines took on a ranked Florida Gators and came out the clear cut victor in a heavyweight fight.

The spread opened with Michigan as a 31.5 point favorite. It has since gone up to 34.5 points. The Over/Under opened at 49.5 points and has come down as low as 48.5 total points.

NCAAF Game Prediction and Free Vegas Betting Pick: Michigan -34.5

The public confidence from the Bearcats players is entertaining. In fact, it’s probably going to be more entertaining than the game itself. The Bearcats gave up 224 yards on the ground to FCS Austin Peay, which is outrageous even if they were the 104th ranked defense against the run in 2016.

Michigan’s ground game tallied 215 yards on the ground against the Gators defense, which is far superior to the Bearcats. Expect a big game for Big Blue’s rush attack against Cincinnati, easily eclipsing Austin Peay’s total. And, when the run game isn’t pounding the ball, Wilton Speight is going to be throwing it all over the field.

Speight had a difficult game against the Gators only completing 11-of-25 passes for 181 yards, 1 TD and 2 interceptions that were returned for touchdowns. He will look to get back on track this week, and all signs point to him having a big game.

As for the Bearcats offense, they’re in serious trouble. They had difficulties moving the ball on the ground against Austin Peay last week and this week they will have even more problems. In fact, you can expect Michigan to shut down the run completely, and force Cincy to throw the ball. Against Florida, the Wolverines only allowed 11 yards rushing on 27 carries. And when Florida couldn’t run the ball, Michigan ate them up in the pass game sacking the Gators 6 times.

It’s going to be so lopsided that even Michigan’s backups will dominate Cincy. Keep this in mind, if it wasn’t for Florida scoring two touchdowns on interception returns, they would’ve lost 31-3. That’s how dominating Michigan’s defense is. I expect the half time score to be at least 31-3 in this week’s contest.

Cincy is 9-17 ATS in their last 26 games, 2-8 ATS in their last 10 Non-Conference games, and 2-6 in their last 8 games for the month of September. For the same month, Michigan is 6-3 ATS in their last 9 games.

For Michigan to be a contender in the Big 10 conference this year, they can’t have emotional letdowns following big wins. I don’t expect Harbaugh letting his team play down to the Bearcats level of talent. If anything, Harbaugh will get on that offense for the mistakes they made last week and we’ll see a huge offensive output for Speight and the Wolverines.

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