Week 0 is officially upon us and if you’ve been craving football all summer, Saturday probably feels like Christmas Eve with Christmas coming next weekend in Week 1.
That also means that Michigan State is gearing up to start a new era with Pat Fitzgerald taking over for Jonathan Smith who couldn’t get the Spartans to a bowl game in his two years. It also means the start of weekly betting lines for Michigan State, starting with Toledo in the opener.
Unfortunately, Vegas isn’t too high on the Spartans to take care of business with ease in the season opener against a MAC opponent which is a little surprising.
In fact, DraftKings has Michigan State as just a 10-point favorite at home to start the year. Here are the opening betting odds for the Michigan State vs. Toledo opener:
Line: Michigan State -10
Over/Under: 49.5
Moneyline: Michigan State -395 | Toledo +310
Michigan State is still a double-digit favorite, but this opening line shows that Vegas just doesn’t trust Fitzgerald to have an immediate impact like we all do. He’s only projected to beat a MAC team by two scores in his first game as head coach. The “bag of chips” on the shoulder that Fitzgerald was talking about at Big Ten Media Days is growing by the day.
Toledo is expected to be one of the better teams in the MAC despite losing long-time head coach Jason Candle to UConn and bringing in Mike Jacobs who was in the FCS at Mercer last year.
You can never count Toledo out.
Also, Mark Dantonio could probably tell Fitzgerald how scary an upset-hungry MAC team can be seeing as he lost to Central Michigan at Spartan Stadium in 2009.
Will Pat Fitzgerald avoid the dreaded season-opening dud?
A tradition at Michigan State is a lackluster performance in the season opener against inferior opponents. The last time that Michigan State actually looked good in the opener was the Kenneth Walker III season against Fitzgerald and the Wildcats.
Before that, the last time that fans felt good about the team after the season opener was back in 2017 when the Spartans beat Bowling Green 35-10 and they went on to win 10 games.
During the Smith era, he put up a 16-10 dud against FAU in his first season and then they beat MAC champion Western Michigan 23-6 in the first game but it just never felt like Michigan State was going to pull away. The Spartans had just 336 yards in that win. No one felt great about the offense that started strong and then stalled out in the second half.
Michigan State fans would like to see a sweat-free win in the opener.
And they’ll see that with a 34-13 win over the Rockets.
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