Michigan Coach Brady Hoke said Wednesday that he never considers his team to be an underdog and that the struggling Wolverines "will be ready to play" when No. 3 Ohio State visits on Saturday.
But Michigan is an underdog in the betting world. A two-touchdown (or more) underdog, in fact.
Las Vegas sportsbooks have seen Ohio State win all its games this season -- and a bunch in recent history against Michigan, too. The line for Saturday's game in Ann Arbor opened at anywhere from 12.5 to 14 and has been climbing since.
The Vegas line is just an opinion, but it's a strong one. Sportsbooks in the business of making money have Ohio State as a -605 favorite on the money line (just to win the game), meaning bettors would have to put up $605 to win $100 on the Buckeyes and $100 to win $475 on Michigan.
As of Wednesday morning, the Las Vegas Hilton and the Mirage had Ohio State as a 15-point favorite, while Caesar's had it at 14.5 The popular offshore website BetOnline had Ohio State -14.5 with an over/under point total of 58. On Sportsbook.com, the line had climbed as high as 16.
Under Hoke, Michigan has never previously been more than a six-point underdog in a Big Ten game. Saturday's game will mark the 12th time under Hoke that Michigan has been the betting underdog, and the Wolverines are 3-8 outright in those games, 5-6 against the spread.
At 14.5, it's the largest documented margin by which Ohio State has ever been favored in Ann Arbor. The Buckeyes were 20.5-point favorites in Columbus in 2008, when they rolled to a 42-7 victory.
Some articles about Michigan's 1969 upset of then-unbeaten Ohio State in Ann Arbor by Bo Schembechler's first Michigan team say that Michigan was a 17-point underdog that day, but there are no sportsbook records to document that. Available records go back to the early 1990s; MaizeAndGoBlue.com pored through them and wrote that Michigan has only been a 10.5 or more point underdog six times in that span.
Ohio State won, 26-21, as a four-point favorite last season and covered as an 8.5-point underdog in a 40-34 loss in Ann Arbor two seasons ago. The Buckeyes are 10-2 against the spread vs. Michigan since 2000 and are 6-4-1 against the spread this season. Michigan is 6-5 against the spread this season.
The last time an underdog won outright in the series was 2004, when host Ohio State won 37-21 as a four-point underdog.
