Week 10 College Football: Jacksonville State vs. Liberty

Conference USA clashes on Wednesday night are actually going away after this week, as November brings us MACtion on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But, we’ve got a couple more games, including maybe the game of the year to this point in C-USA. Jacksonville State takes on Liberty in the main event of the evening, while Kennesaw State, who just beat Liberty for the first FBS win in program history, looks for another David over Goliath result against Western Kentucky.

Jacksonville State vs. Liberty is the game in the spotlight for me and we’ll start there.

 

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Jacksonville State Gamecocks at Liberty Flames (-1.5, 63)

7 p.m. ET (CBS Sports Network)

The Flames played with fire a few times earlier this season and finally got burned, losing to the consensus worst team in FBS from a power rating standpoint. Liberty fell 27-24 to Kennesaw State after struggling with FIU in the previous game. This has still been a fairly dominant team on a per-play basis, at least in C-USA action, posting 6.4 YPP with just 4.9 YPP allowed. A 1.5 YPP differential is usually going to lead to more impressive wins and better results.

But, this was the fifth-best offense in the nation last season by yards per play. Ironically, this year’s defense is over a yard per play better in conference games, but the offense has fallen off by about a full yard.

I had every intention of going against Liberty here before last week’s faux pas. Jacksonville State has been dominant in league play, racking up over 7.7 yards per play. They are nearly +2.5 YPP. Liberty obviously represents a huge step up in class, but the two teams have played pretty comparable conference competition. The big tests for both are against each other, Western Kentucky, and Sam Houston State. None of them have played head-to-head yet.

If you had told me that there was a QB I would prefer over Kaidon Salter in the conference this season, I would have laughed until it hurt. But, that’s exactly what we have here with Tyler Huff, who has accounted for 16 total TD and over 2,000 yards of offense. Huff has an 8/4 TD/INT ratio with a 65.1% completion rate and 1,406 passing yards to go with 654 rushing yards on 94 attempts.

Salter has a 61% completion rate with a 10/2 ratio and 1,280 passing yards to his name, but he’s only rushed for 278 yards on 61 attempts. I guess a case could be made that Jamey Chadwell was holding back some of the playbook and his team just wasn’t taking the schedule seriously, but this has been such an underwhelming Liberty team in a season where they actually had a lot to play for with the expanded playoff and the best chance of going undefeated as a Group of Five team.

Yet, here we are. The caveat with Jacksonville State is that they got blown out by Coastal Carolina and Louisville, plus lost to a pretty bad Eastern Michigan team, before getting on track with four wins over four of the worst FBS teams in the country.

This could be a wake-up call for Jacksonville State. But, I also think it took Huff and a ton of transfers some time to get things sorted out. Huff already has three games with 101+ rushing yards and has had games of 176 and 151 here recently. That extra dimension is the difference for me.

Pick: Jacksonville State +1.5

Other Wednesday Game

Kennesaw State at Western Kentucky (-24, 50.5): ESPN2 has this one, as the Owls head to Bowling Green as big underdogs. WKU did catch a break that Hunter Watson got hurt for Sam Houston State in their last game, as he was 6-for-9 for 128 yards and two TD early in the contest.

WKU clearly has the better offense and has 7.2 yards per play in C-USA action thus far. Kennesaw State is the only team in the nation averaging under four yards per play, though they are up to 4.5 in conference action. WKU’s defense has actually been steaming garbage in conference play with 6.6 YPP against.

My power ratings point me towards Western Kentucky. I know Kennesaw State beat Liberty, but this is also an Owls team that scored three offensive points against Middle Tennessee and had 234 yards. Kennesaw State only has eight offensive touchdowns. Last week was an awesome story and a hell of a moment for the program, but I think they get trounced here.

Pick: Western Kentucky -24

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