Week 14 College Football: Toledo vs. Akron

The final installment of MACtion, at least in a traditional sense, is on Tuesday night to kick off Week 15. MAC teams will participate in some midweek bowl games next month, but that won’t be the same. However, we can cherish all the fun times we had together during the regular season.

Kent State vs. Buffalo and Toledo vs. Akron are the games in question, as the Bulls are in some very rare air as a favorite and the growing respect for the Zips is evident in the game against the Rockets.

 

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We’ll start with Toledo and Akron and go from there.

For all of this week’s college football insights, refer to our College Football Week 14 Hub.

Toledo Rockets (-8.5, 49) at Akron Zips

7 p.m. ET

Toledo has nothing to play for except pride this week, as the Rockets will go bowling with a 7-4 overall record, but they picked up their third loss in conference play last week at the hands of Ohio to be eliminated from MAC Championship Game contention. 

As I talked about last week, the Rockets just are not the same team on the offensive side of things. They are under 5.4 yards per play for the season and rank 98th in that category. They only have 5.2 YPP against MAC foes. This is just the second time since 2016 that the Rockets have failed to have at least six yards per play and easily their worst output in conference games.

They have been stout defensively, though, holding opponents to 4.89 YPP and 4.85 YPP in conference games. Last week, they just couldn’t get off the field against Ohio, as the Bobcats ran the ball 54 times and the Rockets only had 53 offensive snaps total.

Tucker Gleason has only thrown for 272 yards in the last two games and has been sacked three times. He was banged up earlier this year and it seems as though he and the rest of the Rockets are looking forward to a little downtime before the bowl game.

Meanwhile, Akron is still fighting. The Zips crushed rival Kent State to win the Wagon Wheel last week and haven’t beaten Toledo since 2013, a span of four games, as the teams don’t play very often. This is the first season without divisions in the MAC, so they may run into each other more frequently.

Akron does have almost 5.7 YPP in conference action, so they’re ahead of Toledo in that department, but they are far worse defensively. The Zips have allowed over six yards per play to conference foes. The weather won’t provide a ton of cover for the defense and I think Toledo has a good chance to rally here before going to a bowl game.

Pick: Toledo -8.5

Other Tuesday Game

Kent State at Buffalo (-21.5, 49): Windy conditions will be a factor here, a problem for Kent State, as the two best players for the Golden Flashes are WRs Chrishon McCray and Luke Floriea. They have combined for 80 of the team’s 129 catches, 1,366 of the team’s 1,774 receiving yards, and 15 of the 17 receiving TDs.

Kent State has rushed for 2.3 yards per carry this season. So, the weather is a problem to say the least. But, this is the biggest favorite role for Buffalo against a FBS opponent since Week 15 in 2020 when the Bulls were -33 against Akron and won 56-7. Lance Leipold was still the coach then.

I don’t doubt that Buffalo has a chance to cover here, but Kent State should be motivated to avoid going 0-12. The last team to do that was Akron in 2019. Motivation and performance are two very different things, though. I lean Buffalo, but it’s officially a no-play from me.

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