Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Memorial Stadium - Bloomington, IN

Stream: CBS

Indiana -20½ over Minnesota

3:30 PM EST. Let us start with the obvious question: who in their right mind is laying almost three touchdowns with Indiana? The Hoosiers can barely score, everybody who has bet them lately has been ripping up tickets, and Minnesota just strangled Iowa's playoff hopes with defense. The points look like free money. That is exactly the problem. Oddsmakers are not in the habit of giving away free money, and when a number looks this appealing, it is usually bait. The whole world is lining up to take Minnesota and the points, which is precisely why we are going the other way.

And then there is the man on the other sideline. P.J. Fleck, the human espresso shot, sprinting around like a motivational speaker who wandered onto a football field and never left. Row the Boat, row the boat, row the damn boat, a slogan for everything and a solution for nothing. This is the same genius who ran the Fleck Bank, where players earned coins for community service, good grades, and ratting out their own teammates, coins that could allegedly be redeemed for getting away with failed drug tests and broken team rules. When the whole thing came out, Fleck explained that no coins ever existed, that it was all an analogy. Of course it was. An imaginary currency for an imaginary culture, run by a man who treats a football program like a cult with better slogans. Former players described the atmosphere as cult-like, and honestly, that might be the most accurate scouting report Minnesota has ever produced.

Here is the rest of the case, and it is simple. You are buying the team everybody is sick of and selling the team everybody just fell in love with. Indiana is the defending national champion, ranked fourth, playing at home with College GameDay in town, and the public perception of them is so low that even their own coach thought about benching his quarterback last week. That is rock bottom, and rock bottom is where you buy. Minnesota, meanwhile, just played its Super Bowl against Iowa. Now the Gophers walk into a Halloween hornet's nest in Bloomington against a team that has not been sharp all year? P.J. Fleck is so universally disliked that opposing teams aren't just interested in beating Minnesota. They want to embarrass him. If they get the opportunity to run up the score, they're not taking their foot off the gas. They're stepping on it. By the fourth quarter, Fleck will still be sprinting up and down the sideline, still rowing his invisible boat, still screaming slogans at young men who checked out two hours ago, and the boat will be taking on water. On Halloween, Fleck does not even need a costume. He shows up dressed as a motivational speaker every single week. We will lay the lumber with the champs and watch the boat sink. 

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