Interesting that you think they'll top the O/U (54.5) fairly easily (65). I really don't see the game score going so high, given Michigan's offensive woes and Snyder's terribly slow-starting bowl game offenses over the past several years. My likely scenario is that we come out slow, have a bad turnover on their half of the field, they run it somewhat effectively, and we go into halftime with something like a 10-7 lead. Second half each team scores 14-17 points, and the Cats wind up winning 27-21 or so.
Whether this is a close win/loss or blowout Cats win depends on whether Waters hits deep passes. Headed into this, it has the feel of a game to me where the turning point could be a Waters pass on the money early in the 2nd quarter for a long TD that starts a rout, or a Waters overthrow at that point that we look back on as a missed opportunity that led to a nailbiter/loss. The coaches seem to love the deep pass, and they have been real momentum plays for us (both ways), so I think they come into play significantly again.
The pessimist side of me says that Michigan's QB situation/supposedly weak run game has all the makings of a Michigan run game domination of our defense, so let's hope Michigan's really bad enough that it won't matter what kind of crappy effort ol' Chicken Lips puts out there.
