Tough road trips for Ohio State, Michigan; Toledo, Bowling Green favored in games

10/27/2012

Eastern Mich­i­gan at Bowl­ing Green

Time: 3:30 p.m.

Records: EMU is 1-6, 0-3 MAC; BGSU is 5-3, 3-1

TV: BCSN (tape-de­lay)

Ra­dio: 1470, 99.1

Ser­ies: BGSU leads 23-11-1

Favor­ite: BGSU by 15

Notes: This is the first meet­ing of the two schools since 2008, when EMU scored a touch­down with 36 sec­onds re­main­ing to claim at 24-21 vic­tory at Doyt Perry Sta­dium. … That loss snapped a nine-game win streak by BG over the Eagles, who had not beaten the Fal­cons since 1989. … Bowl­ing Green is look­ing to im­prove to 4-0 at home this sea­son, which would mark the first time this pro­gram had turned that trick since the 2004 squad was 5-0 at the Doyt. … The two teams rank at op­po­site ends of the spec­trum in terms of de­fense: EMU is last in the 13-team MAC in yards al­lowed (510.1 per game) and is next-to-last in points al­lowed (39.4 per game), while BG al­lows the few­est points (16.8 per game) and yards (304.0 per game). … Among the lo­cals on the Eagles’ ros­ter are St. John’s Je­suit grad Jake Pen­nese, a red­shirt fresh­man who is a re­serve line­backer; Per­rys­burg na­tive Mi­cah Carter, a fresh­man de­fen­sive line­man; and Bed­ford prod­uct Bren­dan Re­nius, a fresh­man place­kicker. … The Fal­cons en­ter the game with a four-game win streak and need one more vic­tory to be­come bowl-el­i­gi­ble. … In that four-game streak the BG de­fense has nearly scored as many touch­downs (two) as it has al­lowed (three).

Toledo at Buf­falo

Time: 3:30 p.m.

Records: UT is 7-1, 4-0 MAC; UB is 1-6, 0-3

TV: BCSN

Ra­dio: 1370

Ser­ies: UT leads 5-3

Favor­ite: UT by 7.5

Notes: These teams ha­ven’t played since 2007 when Buf­falo scored a 43-33 win at home. ... With a win, UT could crack the top 25 for the first time since 2001. The Rock­ets were the last team out of this week’s As­so­ci­ated Press poll. ... UB has played a dif­fi­cult sched­ule, in­clud­ing Geor­gia, Kent State, Con­necti­cut, Ohio, North­ern Il­li­nois, and Pitts­burgh. Its lone win came against Mor­gan State in the sec­ond week of the sea­son. ... UT quar­ter­back Ter­rance Owens has not thrown a touch­down pass in three of the past four games. ... UT run­ning back David Fluel­len needs 47 rush­ing yards to reach 1000. ... UB is get­ting healthy. Run­ning back Bran­den Oliver (142 ypg) re­turns for this game, as does re­ceiver Fred Lee. Both have been out since sus­tain­ing in­ju­ries on Sept. 19. Also back is the team’s top re­ceiver, Alex Neutz, who missed last week’s 20-6 loss to Pitts­burgh. ... Ex­pected to be back for UT is de­fen­sive tackle Danny Farr, who has been out since suf­fer­ing a knee in­jury on Sept. 8 at Wy­o­ming. ... The Bulls rank sec­ond in the MAC against the pass, al­low­ing 195.4 yards per game.

 

No. 9 Ohio State at Penn State

Records: OSU is 8-0, 4-0 Big Ten; PSU is 5-2, 3-0

Time: 5:30 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Ra­dio: 106.5

Ser­ies: Tied 13-13

Favor­ite: Even

Notes: The Buck­eyes are set­ting off on their tough­est stretch of the sea­son, with their fi­nal four games in­clud­ing this game, at Wis­con­sin, and the home fi­nale against Mich­i­gan. That trio is a com­bined 16-6 and 9-1 in the Big Ten. … Ohio State has won its last two trips to State Col­lege by a com­bined 61-24, but will be seek­ing to set­tle the score af­ter a 20-14 home loss last sea­son. … With OSU one of 11 un­beaten FBS teams and the only 8-0 team, coach Ur­ban Meyer is one win away from match­ing the sec­ond-best start by a new Buck­eyes coach. Car­roll Wid­does went 9-0 in 1944. Earle Bruce opened 11-0 in 1979. … It will be strength against strength when OSU runs the ball. The Buck­eyes rank sec­ond in the Big Ten with 249.6 rush­ing yards per game while Penn State is sec­ond in run de­fense, al­low­ing an av­er­age of 113 rush­ing yards. … One rea­son for Ohio State’s ground suc­cess: the emer­gence of Car­los Hyde. With eight touch­downs in his past three games, the ju­nior tail­back now leads the con­fer­ence in over­all scor­ing (10 points per game.)

 

No. 20 Mich­i­gan at Ne­braska

Time: 8 p.m.

Records: Mich­i­gan 5-2, 3-0 Big Ten; Ne­braska 5-2, 2-1

TV: ESPN2

Ra­dio: 100.7

Ser­ies: Mich­i­gan leads 4-2-1

Favor­ite: Ne­braska by 2

Notes: To­day will mark Mich­i­gan's first trip to Lin­coln since 1911, when the Wol­v­er­ines & Corn­husk­ers played to a 6-6 tie. How­ever, to­day will be Mich­i­gan coach Brady Hoke’s third meet­ing with Ne­braska. Last year Mich­i­gan de­feated Ne­braska 45-17 in Ann Ar­bor, and Hoke’s 2007 Ball State team lost 41-40 at Ne­braska. … Ne­braska quar­ter­back Tay­lor Mar­ti­nez has emerged as one of the Big Ten’s more ef­fi­cient pass­ers. The ju­nior is 124 for 185 pass­ing for 1,615 yards and 15 touch­downs, with four in­ter­cep­tions, and leads the con­fer­ence in pass ef­fi­ciency (162.8). Mar­ti­nez is sec­ond in to­tal pass­ing av­er­age per game (230.7) in the Big Ten, be­hind Penn State quar­ter­back Matt McGloin (255.4). …Mich­i­gan quar­ter­back De­nard Robin­son leads the Big Ten in rush­ing and is sev­enth in the NCAA, av­er­ag­ing 128.6 yards a game. In last weeks’ 12-10 win over Mich­i­gan State, Robin­son ran for 96 yards. … Mich­i­gan’s de­fense is sec­ond in the Big Ten, al­low­ing 285.3 yards a game, and has given up two touch­downs in its first three Big Ten games. The Wol­v­er­ines ha­ven’t al­lowed a rush­ing touch­down since a 13-6 loss Sept. 22 at Notre Dame. … If run­ning back Rex Burk­head is not avail­able for to­day’s game, then the Husk­ers will turn to Ameer Ab­dul­lah, who leads Ne­braska with 615 yards rushing.