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Greetings from college football’s morning bite, “Can’t Wait For Saturday,” courtesy of longtime Illini beat writer, AP Top 25 voter and state Heisman representative Bob Asmussen. He’ll give you his take on the game he loves every day

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During the 2024 season, I wrote many sentences that were not on my pre-season BINGO card. Here’s another one: Michigan desperately needs a win against Indiana on Saturday.

Why is this so weird? Because in the history of college football, Michigan has owned Indiana. In their respective series, the Wolverines had 58 wins and the Hoosiers had 10 wins. Michigan’s 2023 national champion won 52-7.

But they’re here Saturday, ready for the afternoon game in Bloomington. Memorial Stadium will be filled not with Michigan fans, but with people excited about Indiana’s perfect start.

The Hoosiers are favored to score two goals. This is the story of Curt Cignetti’s team starting the season 9-0 and finishing high in the College Football Playoff standings. Win two of their last three games and they’re in IMHO. Of course, one of those games is against terrible Purdue and the other is against Ohio State.

I’ll go with the Hoosiers, who will improve to 10-0 with a 42-17 win on Saturday.

This is the filler game for CWFS’s weekly prediction contest. Illinois I improvised while I was off on Saturday.

I hope you can make a guess, too. Email your picks to [email protected]. Be sure to include your score, name, where you live, and tell me if you are a UI graduate. Feel free to send in your general comments about Michigan this week, too. Just for fun.

If you want to make my life easier, write your predicted score in the subject line.

As always, if someone hits the number on their nose, you’ll receive a $50 gift card to Papa Del’s. I’m fine with this.

Good luck with your choices and we hope you have a great weekend.

Bob Asmussen is a college football reporter and columnist for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at 217-393-8248 or [email protected].