Northwestern at Rutgers

A pair of rebuilding teams that went 1-8 in the Big 10 last year with lousy offenses. David Braun takes the reigns at Northwestern, a defensive coordinator at North Dakota State where he won a pair of national titles. He picked up a gem in transfer Ben Bryant, a former starting quarterback for Cincinnati and Eastern Michigan where he had 37 touchdowns. They also add WRs A.J. Henning (Michigan) and Cam Johnson (Arizona State), so this offense looks vastly different from 2022. Northwestern is on a 92-66 spread run on the road, including 52-31 ATS away in the first half of the season. Northwestern is also 66-45 ATS on field turf. Rutgers has 7 starters back on what should be a decent defense, but the offense still looks bad. QB Gavin Wimsatt (5 TDs, 7 INTs in 2022) is back on an offense that used 3 quarterbacks last fall who combined for 11 TDs and 14 interceptions with just a 50% completion percentage. Rutgers was 128th nationally in points (13 per game) and 130th in total yards (254.5 per game). They also lost their three best wide receivers. Rutgers is on a 3-11 ATS run at home under Greg Schiano against Big 10 opponents. And road underdogs like Northwestern of 3.5 to 10 points are 59-26 ATS after a season with a turnover margin of minus-1 or worse. Play Northwestern.