The No. 17 Iowa Hawkeyes had their best season ever under Kirk Ferentz in 2015 and were within a breath of winning the Big Ten and getting to the College Football Playoff. The Hawkeyes lose a lot from last year’s stellar team, but return CJ Beathard and his top target Matt VandeBerg. Their opponent in College Football Week 1 will be a Miami Redhawks team that is one of the worst in the MAC, registering just one winning season over the past 10 years.
The contest in Week 1 of the regular season will go down Saturday, September 3, 2016, at 3:30 p.m. ET at Kinnick Stadium. This game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Miami (OH) +27
Iowa -27
Over/Under 51.5
Odds Analysis
This line has barely moved since the opener and will likely end right around this number. Many sharps doubt this Iowa team’s capabilities, but Miami is not the team that can expose it.
Player to Watch
The Hawkeyes have struggled to find a steady quarterback in recent years and that was a big reason why they were topping out at eight wins a season prior to the emergence of Beathard. Beathard gave the team exactly what it needed though with consistent passing and didn’t turn the ball over. In 362 pass attempts last season, he was intercepted just five times. That led to a huge turnover advantage for Iowa and was one of the keys to its success.
Unlike quarterbacks at other schools, Beathard is rarely asked to go out and win a game, but instead manage it and come through when it counts. He didn’t register a 300-yard game against any team last season and only cracked the 30 attempt mark in a game four times. Beathard may be asked to do more this season with a lot of the production from last year gone, but has shown a lot of prudence in his throws.
Key Stat
The most important stat in football is turnovers and the Hawkeyes were fantastic in that department last season. Iowa ended up +11 in that category last season and two of the three games in which it turned the ball over more than its opponent ended in losses.
On the other side of the spectrum were the Redhawks. Miami finished with a turnover differential of -14 and only once did it turn the ball over less times than its opponent. Those turnovers were a large reason why Miami finished the season at just 3-9.
Free ATS Pick
The Redhawks are long removed from the heyday of Ben Roethlisberger and have been struggling to find an identity ever since. If the team is ever going to break through, it’s going to be this year. Miami has 10 starters returning on offense and should be able to move the ball much more effectively than it did last season. Moving the ball against an Iowa defense that will be the toughest on its schedule will be a tall order though.
Iowa has to be careful of not looking ahead to Iowa State next week. In three of the past four seasons, a MAC team played the Hawkeyes to within one score, and in one of those seasons the MAC team even got an outright upset. If Iowa gets caught looking ahead, this game could be a lot closer than people think.
The Hawkeyes were an outlier last season. Their record didn’t match their advanced stats and they were very fortunate to get to 12 wins. Iowa will get the win here, but 27 points is too much to ask. The Hawkeyes only beat two teams, Northwestern and North Texas, by more than that margin last season and their style of football is just not conducive to covering large spreads.
College Football Odds: Hawkeyes 31, Redhawks 7
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