Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan
Day 2 of the MACtion brings us a trio of games, including another chance for Sacramento State to pull off an upset. Doing so against Toledo will be more difficult than last week’s win against Kent State, but sometimes college football can have some fun events. We have more reasonable lines with Ball State vs. UMass and Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan, while the respective Michigan schools play at Ford Field in Detroit. That’s the closest anyone will get to the MAC Championship Game, which is at that venue on the first Saturday in December.
That game has my strongest betting opinion, but all three games will get attention here.
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Central Michigan vs. Eastern Michigan (-1.5, 44.5) Prediction
Wednesday, 7:30 pm ET (ESPN2)
It’s a pretty dramatic drop in class for the Chippewas, who are just 1-3 in MAC play, but face three of the top teams in the conference. Entering this week, Ohio, Western Michigan, and Miami (OH) are a combined 11-2 in conference play. The Chips defeated Akron, which entered the week without a conference win. Eastern Michigan falls somewhere in between.
Similarly, EMU had wins over Sac State, Akron, and UMass, while losing to Ohio and Toledo. Context is very important in this conference because there are good teams, bad teams, and worse teams and usually the worst of the worst lose and teams like these two fall somewhere in the middle by beating teams that are better than them and losing to bottom-feeders.
In that respect, these were two fairly comparable teams in the Motor City on Wednesday. Both teams have poor offensive numbers. Central Michigan enters the week 126th in the nation in yards per game and Eastern Michigan is 132nd. In terms of conference-only numbers, CMU has a 5.51 YPP to EMU’s 4.96. CMU also boasts better YPP numbers in overall defense, sitting 81st in the nation at 5.57, while EMU checks in at 113th with more than six yards per play allowed.
Again, however, parsing down to just the conference numbers, the Chips allowed 5.35 YPP and the Eagles allowed 6.04. According to 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’s one area where the Eagles have been really good this season, as they’ve been picked apart by opposing passing offenses. They gave up 4.25 yards per carry overall and just 4.06 in conference play. Even with a lot of turnovers this season, the Chips, under former Army offensive line coach Matt Drinkall, ran the ball nearly 130 times more times than they threw it.
One wrinkle for Drinkall is that his QB is his leading rusher. Angel Flores had 128 carries for 618 yards. The Eagles haven’t seen many mobile QBs this season. The Chips only played one FBS team with a losing record and that was Akron, where they averaged 7.4 yards per carry. I’m not saying they’ll do that here, but I think they’ll find success on this EMU defense. Both of these teams are moving at a very slow pace, so I was a little surprised to see the overall increase, but consider that a positive thing for CMU, as it indicates 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 went into freefall mode after starting 4-0. QB Pop Watson was hurt and has been a mess, but he returned last week in the loss at UConn. UMass played a 151st-ranked strength of schedule per Sagarin and Ball State played a top-100 slate, so there’s a big difference in the competition here. The Cardinals 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 on them +3 here, but not strongly enough to bet.
Toledo (-26, 53) at Sacramento State: Head coach Alonzo Carter cried on the sidelines as the Hornets wrapped up their first FBS win. I don’t think he’ll have the same reaction to this one, because the Rockets are a much better team than Kent State. However, a little belief could help his team enter another game with long odds. First-year head coach Mike Jacobs has had an inconsistent first season with the Rockets and it’s away from home for a midweek game. That said, this game features a massive talent gap and Jacobs could use Kent State’s loss to keep his team focused.
See picks from VSiN hosts and guests on this game and all Week 10 games on our Pro Picks Page.