Well, if Bovada is right, it should be a pretty high-stakes edition of The Game this November.
Bovada's preseason college football odds are out, and the oddsmaker likes Michigan and Ohio State as favorites to win the Big Ten title in 2016, giving the two storied rivals 7-4 odds to win the conference this fall.
The favoritism of the Wolverines and Buckeyes shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Jim Harbaugh worked wonders in his first season at the helm in Ann Arbor, turning a team that missed the postseason in its final season under Brady Hoke into a 10-game winner. And with the vast majority of what was an exceptional defense back this season, there's plenty of reason to put Michigan at the top of any Big Ten projection. But of course Urban Meyer reloads with the best of them, and despite the loss of so many players to the NFL, the return of quarterback J.T. Barrett and others should make for another hard-to-beat Ohio State team this fall.
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Michigan State, which also has a lot of departed talent to replace, came in third in Bovada's odds, with the Spartans at 7-1 to win the conference crown.
Iowa, which went undefeated during its 12-game regular-season schedule last season and returns starting quarterback C.J. Beathard and defensive back extraordinaire Desmond King, has 9-1 odds to win the Big Ten.
So too does Nebraska, another team out of the West Division which has a senior quarterback in Tommy Armstrong running the show. The Huskers' status as a team tied for the fourth-best odds to win the conference is interesting following a sub-.500 record in Mike Riley's first season last year.
Bovada doesn't think too highly of the chances of local teams Northwestern and Illinois, giving the Wildcats — who won 10 games last season — 33-1 odds and the Illini 50-1 odds.
Big Ten
But at least they aren't as unlikely to win the league crown as Purdue and Rutgers, who each received 100-1 odds from Bovada.
Here's the complete list of Bovada's odds to win the Big Ten this season.
Michigan: 7-4
Ohio State: 7-4
Michigan State: 7-1
Iowa: 9-1
Nebraska: 9-1
Wisconsin: 14-1
Penn State: 18-1
Northwestern: 33-1
Minnesota: 40-1
Illinois: 50-1
Indiana: 50-1
Maryland: 50-1
Purdue: 100-1
Rutgers: 100-1