Indiana vs. Northwestern: How to watch, odds, analysis and more

Game Info / How to Watch

Who? Indiana Hoosiers (6-2, #23 SP+) at Northwestern Wildcats (1-6, #76 SP+)

Where? Memorial Stadium, Bloomington, Indiana

When? Saturday, Nov. 2, 7 p.m.

Channel? FS1

Vegas? Indiana -11.5

SP+ Projection? Indiana by 19 (32-13), 87 percent chance of Hoosier victory

On Saturday, Nov. 2 the bowl-eligible Indiana Hoosier football team will play a game at Memorial Stadium at night. Go back and read that again. Soak it in. How does it feel? Pretty good?

The Hoosiers are in the middle of a special season. Last week they clinched a postseason berth for the first time since 2016 by beating Nebraska on the road. It was the quickest an IU team has won six games since 1993.

Now they get to build upon that in a big home matchup against the pitiful Northwestern Wildcats. The Wildcats have played a tougher schedule and perhaps aren’t as bad as their 1-6 record indicates, but boy are they bad. Their offense is the fifth-worst in the nation per SP+, even worse than the calamity that rutger trotted out against IU a few weeks ago that produced one (1) passing yard. That’s all you need to know because unless Kain Coulter comes out of the tunnel to play QB for the Cats again and/or an artificial intelligence takes over playcalling duties for Mick McCall things aren’t getting better anytime soon.

Defensively, however, the Cats are pretty decent. SP+ has them ranked 13th in the nation. If you take out their game against Ohio State (in which they allowed 52 points because Ohio State is massively good) they’ve averaged just 19.8 points allowed per game so far this season. That would be the 17th-best mark in the nation. Guys to watch for Northwestern on that side of the ball are Joe Gaziano, who’s forced three fumbles from his defensive line position and also leads the Cats in sacks with 5.5, and Paddy Fisher who’s contributed in a number of ways in the middle of the defense whether it be breaking up passes, sacking the quarterback or just straight up making tackles as he has 53 on the season.

This one shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s another game that the Hoosiers are expected to win and when they’ve been expected to win this season they’ve done just that regardless of what’s happened in previous seasons. That being said, prediction time:

Indiana 420, Northwestern *world’s loudest fart noise*