Week 12 College Football: Central Michigan vs. Toledo

Week 12 of the college football season gets underway on Tuesday with a trio of MACtion games. Central Michigan vs. Toledo, Western Michigan vs. Bowling Green, and Ball State vs. Buffalo are the games in question and all of them feature home favorites across the Great Lakes.

We had some significant weather concerns on the first night of MACtion last week,  but we don’t have that this week, as it will be chilly, but clear with calm winds, so we’re just handicapping the teams and matchups instead of Mother Nature. Interestingly, we’ve seen the total bet up in every game.

 

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We’ll start with Central Michigan vs. Toledo and go from there.

For all of this week’s college football insights, refer to our College Football Week 12 Hub.

Central Michigan Chippewas at Toledo Rockets (-14.5, 51.5)

7 p.m. ET (ESPNU)

Money came in heavy against the Chips last week, who covered in a 23-13 loss to Bowling Green. Joe Labas suffered an arm injury in mid-October and is done for the year, so the Chippewas are going with Tyler Jefferson and Jadyn Glasser, as Glasser came in for his first action of the season last week against BG and was 5-of-7 for 57 yards and had four carries for 10 yards, including one of the team’s two offensive touchdowns.

Glasser might be the better passing option, as Jefferson has only completed 46.6% of his passes and has yet to throw a passing TD, but he is a solid runner with 43 carries for 233 yards. Jim McElwain has some options this week, something he hasn’t really had since Bert Emanuel Jr. went down.

Toledo has a healthy Tucker Gleason, as the Rockets have had some extra time following the 29-28 comeback win over Eastern Michigan. Gleason has missed time sporadically throughout the season, but tied a season-high with three TD in the furious fourth-quarter comeback. Central Michigan has allowed over six yards per play in conference games thus far, and I would expect that the Rockets are able to move the ball.

But, I think CMU can a little bit as well with a dual-threat QB tandem and a quality running game that ranks in the top 40 in yards per carry.

Pick: Over 51.5

Other Tuesday Games

Western Michigan Broncos at Bowling Green Falcons (-8, 58): Western Michigan flipped from favorite to dog last week against Northern Illinois, even though they were leading the conference at 4-0. It was a big wake-up call to face a decent MAC team after playing Ball State, Akron, Buffalo, and Kent State. Now the Broncos get Bowling Green with four teams tied atop the conference at 4-1.

BG seems to be back on track after a tough stretch with losses to Old Dominion and Northern Illinois and a seven-point win over lowly Akron. They’ve won three in a row by margin and are looking to make it four. No play from me here, as WMU was right in the game with NIU before giving up a kick return TD and then another short-field TD in a four-minute span in the third quarter. I think they can hang, but the poor strength of schedule just might be too much.

Ball State Cardinals at Buffalo Bulls (-4, 54.5): Money has come in on Ball State here and I’m always intrigued when bad teams take money. Both teams are bad, but Buffalo is vying for bowl eligibility over the next three games. Ball State needs to win out for that dream to potentially become reality.

These are two bad offenses that rank 114th and 116th in yards per play. Ball State has the worst defense in the nation by YPP at 7.22 and they’ve given up nearly 6.8 YPP in league action. The Bulls are around the national average in YPP, but have allowed more than six YPP in MAC games, hence the high total with two bad offenses. Lean Buffalo, but Ball State has played a ton of close games lately, so this one could go either way.

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