Week 11 College Football: Northern Illinois vs. Western Michigan

Wednesday Night Football: MACtion Edition gives us our third and fourth Mid-American Conference games of Week 11. Ohio vs. Kent State and Northern Illinois vs. Western Michigan are the two games on the slate. Ohio is a double-digit road favorite, just like Bowling Green and Miami were on Tuesday. But, we’ve got a closely-lined game between NIU and WMU, so we’ll have to see if that one lives up to the billing.

Unlike Tuesday’s two games, weather does not appear to be a significant factor in either one of these, but make sure you keep an eye on the forecast at this time of the year, especially in cooler places.

 

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We’ll start with Northern Illinois/Western Michigan and then hit Ohio/Kent State.

For all of this week’s college football insights, refer to our College Football Week 11 Hub.

Northern Illinois Huskies (-1.5, 52.5) at Western Michigan Broncos

7 p.m. ET

Most of the market is 1.5 on this game at time of writing on Monday morning PT. Both DraftKings and Circa opened this game with Western Michigan favored, as the Broncos have rattled off four wins in a row, but the betting market seems unimpressed with WMU’s body of work.

Those four wins have been against Ball State, Akron, Buffalo, and Kent State. The conference as a whole stinks, but those are my four lowest power-rated teams in the MAC. Buffalo is technically tied with Eastern Michigan, but they are the lesser teams in the league. That’s how you wind up with a 1-3 NIU team favored over a 4-0 WMU team on the road.

The Huskies did just lose to Ball State 25-23 in a game where they were -4 in TO margin. NIU lost 13-6 to Toledo, but did outgain the Rockets by more than 100 yards. They also ran 92 offensive plays to Toledo’s 65. The Huskies are struggling to do the little things and also have some QB questions with Ethan Hampton, who didn’t play against Toledo and only had 16 combined pass attempts against UMass and Bowling Green.

Hampton only has a 4/5 TD/INT ratio against FBS opponents this season, as he had a monster game against Western Illinois and hasn’t thrown for more than 198 yards since.

Western Michigan’s numbers deserve a whole shaker of salt with the competition that they’ve played, but Hayden Wolff has a solid 15/3 TD/INT ratio and they have averaged 5.5 yards per carry with 19 total rushing TD. NIU has 22 offensive TD total.

WMU has played the 132nd-ranked schedule per Sagarin, but NIU has played the 124th and remember, they played (and beat) Notre Dame earlier this season. Western Michigan got obliterated by Ohio State.

I understand the market sentiment critical of Western Michigan, but NIU hasn’t been impressive aside from that fluky win over Notre Dame. I’ll take them getting points at home here. They’ve had a 100-yard rusher in each of the last six games and have a better chance at capitalizing in the scoring areas.

Pick: Western Michigan +1.5

Other Wednesday Game

Ohio Bobcats (-18, 52) at Kent State Golden Flashes: There are a lot of college football stats that are weird, but I think my favorite one is that Kent State QB Tommy Ulatowski has a 42.6% completion rate and only 52 completions, but 11 have gone for touchdowns. WR Chrishon McCray is one of the best WR you’ve never heard of and he and Luke Floriea have 61 of Kent State’s 99 receptions.

Kent State is 133rd in yards per play on offense and defense. I haven’t been too impressed with Ohio this season, but they do have a strong running game with mobile QB Parker Navarro. I lean Over 52 in this one with Kent State’s big-play ability in the passing game and Ohio’s good rushing attack, but don’t have an official bet on the game.

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