Illinois Illini (+7) @ Minnesota Golden Gophers NCAA Pick: Once again, I love these late season games where 2-6 teams that have struggled but are still better than 5-4 teams finally get a chance to try and make things right. I’m a strong believer that when Illinois travels to Minnesota to play the Gophers, that’s exactly the type of game they’ll be playing.

Illinois has stunk this year, no doubt about it. But despite their stinking, they had lost 3 games by two touchdowns or less before beating the piss out of Michigan last week, 38-13. That was their second straight win against the spread, and probably the first game they played up to their talent level. They’ve certainly had a pretty tough schedule to start the season, about as tough as Big 10 opening schedules go – playing Missouri, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State, a talented Indiana team, and Purdue – then Michigan. I’m not crazy about the Big 10, but aside from also playing Iowa, that’s about as tough a schedule as a Big 10 team can have.

Minnesota just got done beating Michigan State at home last week, and they’ve played pretty good football in Minnesota. They are 3-2, but a close loss to Wisconsin was a good showing, and it was a 21-21 tie with Cal until the Bears broke the tie with 7 minutes left in the 4th. So, they’re comfortable on the road.

The road team has won 3 of the last 4 meetings between these two schools. Despite the fact that Minnesota has covered in 4 of the last 5 and won outright in all four of those games, I’m taking Illinois to continue playing good football. They have the talent…