... but for a true read on how the upcoming season will play out, it's usually a good idea to go to the guys in Vegas*. Not satisfied with the thousands of ways to bet on college football, they've introduced over/unders on win totals. The chart to the right represents the forecast for Big Ten teams.

The 10 wins predicted for Ohio State seems about right. The only team that's picked to win more games is USC at 10.5. Keep in mind that this figure should represent what the public will bet equally against and outside of Ohio, there are plenty of folks that are thinking under for OSU right about now.

Eight seems kind of high for Michigan and kind of low for the Illini, but when you start looking at the schedule, you start comparing Mizzou on a neutral field vs. Utah at home and other factors (like the Illini's brutal conference road slate) and it doesn't seem so strange anymore.

With Northwestern's OOC schedule of Syracuse (lowest predicted win total at 2.5), Duke, Southern Illinois and Ohio U., there's a good case to take the over on them. Keep in mind that their conference road schedule consists of Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan.

What say you, grizzled prognosticators? Any easy money in that lineup?

(The inspiration for this post brought to you by Get the Picture and Sin City -- which for the first time in decades, really needs your business.)

*Don't worry, Phil Steele is still the HAL 9000 of CFB. His cult hast truly bubbled over in 2008.