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Bookmakers from Southpoint Casino in Las Vegas have set over/under win totals for nearly every FBS team for the 2018 football regular season. According to their projections, Michigan State should finish the season with nine wins.
While they don’t go game-by-game to breakdown where the projected wins and losses will come from, by taking a look at the rest of the Big Ten, it’s easy enough to figure out where the experts think MSU will finish.
Full Big Ten over/unders:
Big Ten East
Ohio State Buckeyes (10.5)
Indiana Hoosiers (5)
Maryland Terrapins (4.5)
Big Ten West
Wisconsin Badgers (10)
Iowa Hawkeyes (7.5)
Illinois Fighting Illini (3.5)
The first thing that jumps out is the expected dogfight at the top of the Big Ten East. While Ohio State is the favorite, there is only a game-and-a-half between the top four teams. Which means the experts think the top teams will take turns beating each other up while running through the rest of the conference.
Nine wins would be an exact duplicate of last year’s results, which saw the Spartans beating both Michigan and Penn State while losing to Ohio State, in addition to Notre Dame and Northwestern.
The win total may not be expected to change, the 2018 schedule looks different than last year. For the first time since 2015, MSU won’t face Notre Dame. Instead, they hit the road to play what will undoubtedly be an interesting Arizona State team week two. Additionally, they see Utah State, Central Michigan, Purdue and Nebraska new on the schedule.
All things considered, nine wins may be a little conservative for this year’s Spartans team, which returns nearly every important player from the 2017 squad. Top to bottom, the schedule also looks at least marginally easier than last year’s, or as easy as a schedule can look in a brutal east division.