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After watching many of the other big NCAA College football conferences play over the last month, the Big Ten will be back in action this weekend.

Of course, that was something that was never a certainty, and in fact the opposite was true. The league canceled the season, before changing course and reinstating it.

Michigan State gets a chance to open with a win, taking on lowly Rutgers Saturday in East Lansing, and the Spartans better take advantage: their schedule is brutal, and the Scarlet Knights give them the best opportunity to win (Michigan State is a -13.5 favorite with many sportsbooks).

Will the Spartans make it to the BCS Playoffs? If they do, that would be a crazy story. But this is 2020, and that is the name of the game now.

But if Penn State or Ohio State, who both start their new campaigns inside the top 10 of the rankings, do make a trip to the BCS Championship, bettors in Michigan may be able to place wagers on them online.

Michigan has legalized sports betting, and it is already available at brick and mortar casinos. But online apps are the future of wagering, and that will be going live very soon.

How soon, you ask?

Michigan state regulators sent the rules for online sports betting to a committee of legislators in the first week of October, and if everything goes to plan, online sports betting could be set to go at the end of December.

But more likely, with the holidays and everything else around the end of the year, it will happen in January, just in time for the NFL playoffs and BCS Championship. That is also right around the time the NBA is planning to start its new season, a month after the NHL starts, and right in the midst of the NCAA basketball campaign.

Talk about a good time to jump into the fray.

With the new action in Michigan, there will be many new bettors looking for information on the various sites, bonus offers, and such. This link is your up-to-date source for everything you need to know, ahead of the biggest potential change to sports gambling in Michigan history.

So can Michigan State win the BCS? Probably not, but the Spartans have decent odds to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Right now, with a lot of uncertainty surrounding the season, Michigan State is joint-10th pick at +1800 to win the national championship, with Iowa the best placed preseason team (+1100, third choice behind Gonzaga at +900 and Villanova at +1000) from the Big Ten, with Illinois eighth choice at +1500: Wisconsin joins Michigan State at +1800.

Predictions:

For the BCS Championship, it is going to come down to Clemson (+150), Alabama (+300), and Ohio State (+300), with the team getting the top seed in better shape than the other two. At this point, I would have to go way out on a limb and pick Clemson.

But for the NCAA basketball champion, there is so much value before the season. Gonzaga is going to be the favorite preseason, and is loaded. If you want an off-the-board selection, I would look at North Carolina, which had a really good recruiting class and can be had at +3000 on some books.

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