Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan
Day 2 of MACtion brings us a trio of games, including another opportunity for Sacramento State to pull off an upset. Doing so against Toledo will be significantly harder than last week’s win over Kent State, but college football can sometimes have some crazy happenings. We have more reasonable lines with Ball State vs. UMass and Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan, as the directional Michigan schools play at Ford Field in Detroit. That’s the closest either one will get to the MAC Championship Game, which will be at that venue on the first Saturday of December.
That game is the one I have the strongest betting opinion on, but all three games will get some attention here.
Odds from Circa Sports as of November 3, 5:30 a.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits. See all of our Week 10 College Football Picks and Predictions.
Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan (-1.5, 44.5) Prediction
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
This is a pretty noticeable step down in class for the Chippewas, who are just 1-3 in MAC play, but have run into three of the conference’s top teams. Heading into this week, Ohio, Western Michigan, and Miami (OH) were a combined 11-2 in conference play. The Chips beat Akron, who entered the week winless in the conference. Eastern Michigan falls somewhere in between.
Similarly, EMU has wins over Sac State, Akron, and UMass, while losing to Ohio and Toledo. Context matters a lot in this conference because there are good teams, bad teams, and worse teams and it’s usually the worst of the worst that get beaten up and teams like these two wind up falling somewhere in the middle by losing to teams better than them and beating the bottom-feeders.
In that respect, these are two fairly comparable teams in the Motor City on Wednesday. Both teams have poor offensive numbers. Central Michigan entered the week 126th in the nation in yards per play and Eastern Michigan was 132nd. In terms of conference-only numbers, CMU has 5.51 YPP to EMU’s 4.96. CMU also boasts the better YPP numbers on defense overall, sitting 81st in the nation at 5.57, while EMU checks in 113th with just over six yards per play allowed.
Again, though, parsing down to the conference-only numbers, the Chips have allowed 5.35 YPP and the Eagles have allowed 6.04. Per Sagarin, Central Michigan’s strength of schedule is about 30 spots higher than Eastern Michigan’s.
The one thing that will decide this game is Eastern Michigan’s run defense. That is one area where the Eagles have actually been pretty good this season, as they’ve been picked apart by opposing passing offenses. They have allowed 4.25 yards per carry overall and just 4.06 in conference play. Even trailing a lot this season, the Chips, under former Army offensive line coach Matt Drinkall, have run the ball about 130 more times than they’ve thrown it.
The one wrinkle for Drinkall is that his QB is his leading rusher. Angel Flores has 128 carries for 618 yards. The Eagles have not seen many mobile QBs this season. The Chips have only played one FBS team with a losing record and it was Akron, where they racked up about 7.4 yards per carry. I’m not saying that they will do that here, but I think they will find success running the rock at this EMU defense. Both of these teams move at an extremely slow pace, so I’m a little surprised to see the total going up, but consider that a positive thing for CMU, as it implies that they will be able to run the ball.
Pick: Central Michigan +1.5
Other Wednesday Games
Ball State at UMass (-3, 50): A rough game here, as the Minutemen have gone into freefall mode after starting 4-0. QB Pop Watson got hurt and things got very rocky, but he did return last week in the loss to UConn. UMass has played the 151st-ranked strength of schedule per Sagarin and Ball State has played a top-100 slate, so there’s a big difference in competition here. The Cardinals do have a positive yards per play differential in conference games, so they’ve certainly been a better team on paper since MAC play began. I lean towards them +3 here, but not strongly enough to bet it.
Toledo (-26, 53) at Sacramento State: Head coach Alonzo Carter was crying on the sidelines as the Hornets wrapped up their first FBS win. I don’t think he’ll have that same reaction in this one, as the Rockets are a vastly better team than Kent State. Nevertheless, a little belief might help his team going into another game with long odds. First-year head coach Mike Jacobs has had an inconsistent first season with the Rockets and this is a long way from home for a midweek game. That said, this game does feature a massive talent gap and Jacobs can use Kent State’s loss to keep his team focused.
Check out picks from VSiN hosts and guests on this game and all of the Week 10 games on our Pro Picks Page.
