it's diificult for me to explain
yes you are correct when in doubt and someone's holding a gun to mine head
bet the better team
but there are "fuzzy" "breaks" in that doctrine
and you have to couple that with the standard "highlight" line breaks
(i.e. 3,6,7,10,14)
and then factor relative historical performance if the teams in question
in this case yes mich is the "better" team,but nebraska while having a "down" year,is still big time NCAA
and that ten is a make-or-break number
that's why it fell to 9.5
take another scenario
a bigtime team having a 4 loss season such as michigan
giving 10.5 or so plus against a "suprise" team harboring a better record
that lay is safer