Central Connecticut State 2 weeks ago came from 14 down to force OT with Robert Morris, would’ve lost had RM made their FG in the bottom of OT1 and then won on a deflected pass for a 2pt conversion. And last week 8 Duquesne turnovers were the story in their 7 pt win. CCSU’s first win vs a ranked opponent since 2014. CCSU is NEC Championship for their first playoff trip since 2019. It may’ve been fairly unlikely that they got here, but one thing is for sure the Devils have been an outstanding dog all year, 6-0 ATS with 3 outright upsets and the losses came by just 9 total points. Overall 9-2 ATS after their week 1 loss at Central Mich. Several weak teams among their W/L record though. Yale and Dartmouth are some quality teams that CCSU legitimately could've beaten.
They have been strong getting TFLs, sacks and turnovers, they lead the NEC and are top 12 nationally in those categories. I’m not comparing all the stat rankings of the playoff teams, but I would suspect that CCSU’s offense is the weakest of the 24 teams in the playoff. I wouldn’t call it bad, just not very productive of threatening. RB Howard is a good all-purpose player and QB Olsen is capable as are the receivers, but generally unremarkable. The games they win they don’t win by much margin, even the bad teams. Played a better 1H than the score showed at Stonehill (should’ve had 3 TDs rather than just 2 as they fumbled at the SH05 near end of 2Q), but they didn’t do much on O in the 2H. Vs Mercyhurst they only led 31-20 until a final 58y TD run stretched the margin to 18 (and for the cover) in the final minute. Only beat Wagner by 10. The O just does enough, not much more. They’re just kind of a solid group all around, offense, special teams and defense. It is definitely an offense that is opportunistic and capitalizes off the things their defense sets up for them. They have proved to be a tough out, other than the 56 pt loss week 1 vs Central Mich, nobody has beat them by more than 4 pts.
Rhode Island is 5-3 ATS as a favorite. Some of the numbers are close to the margin so they could be a little worse depending on lines (like last week at Bryant). The thing about Rhode Island this year, they win a lot, but how they win isn’t as impressive as their 10-2 record. I’ll run down their games from recent to oldest. Last week at Bryant, URI trailed 6-7 and 13-14, only led 28-21 until they scored a TD with 3min left to go up by 14 (some spreads on this game were -14/14.5, closed at -12). URI did outgain them 425-316, but the ypp was better for Bryant at 6.1-5.8. Bryant converted 67% 3rd downs! Bryant actually grew a lot this year and were tough dog their last 4 games so credit to that team. Week before that…Albany led 17-0! URI was able to comeback and win that one 20-17 and were slightly outgained by 58y. They did compete well with Delaware, Rhody D scored and only losing by 3 due to a late score that cut the margin from 10 to 3. URI only had one drive over 54y in that game and took advantage of some short fields, but they were in the game throughout vs Hens despite a 90 yardage deficit. URI beat Monmouth but in that home game they never led until 1:17 left! Monmouth led that one by 11 twice although URI did finish with a 141 yard edge. They beat Maine, game was 7-7, 14-14 then URI scored the final 10 pts, yards were even. Rhody D scored in the UNH game and got a late short field TD for their largest MOV game on the year, 26-9. UNH O was lost at sea at that point in the season (game was 3-2 HT). URI did beat Brown by 10 in a game that was never more than a 7 pt margin for 57 minutes. Beat Hampton in OT, easily could’ve lost in regulation (Hampton blk’d xpt, but were called for offside, rekick was good and it went to OT). Hampton led by 14 twice in the 2H! Now we are back in September where they barely beat Long Island, were outgained by 81y yards in the win vs Campbell and they beat HC by 3 in the opener on a go-ahead TD with :19 left.
What does it all mean? It means seeing a 2 TD spread with a minus next to it by Rhode Island’s name isn’t something that interests me. Their biggest win on the year was 17 vs UNH, a game that Rhody O had just 318 yards and their D and ST led them to as many pts as their O did.
The offense does have a pretty decent ceiling though, they just don’t always come through with the points. A little less certain what we'll get with Helms at QB now after sometimes splitting with time with Farrell who was hurt vs Delaware and had surgery. Farrell gave them a running threat and was the main guy, often entire games or the majority of the time. Helms is the Clemson transfer, jury may still be out on how good he can be. He never overtook Farrell for the job before injury and Farrell was good enough to be named 3rd team All CAA. In the 3 games Helms has been the guy now, he’s 60% with just a 3-4 ratio for 213 ypg. Farrell was under 60% with an 11-8 ratio for less ypg passing, but he was their #2 rusher with 302y and 5 TDs. Skill players are good for URI and the OL is solid.
Best thing about them is their D and especially the front 7 with several playmakers on the DL and among the LBs. This is definitely going to be a big edge as this legit good CAA D unit should be able to cause some issues for an already limited CCSU O.
Should be noted that URI played the bottom 4 rush offenses in the league and also played Campbell who is the 7th worst rush O. Their strong run D numbers therefore are skewed because of who they played. Hampton and Delaware are both top 4 rush Os in the CAA and when they played URI, Delaware ran for 203 (5.3) – which is slightly over Delaware’s season avg (184 5.1) and Hampton ran for 172 (3.6) which is slightly under the HU avg (195 4.3). URI’s overall run D avg is 118ypg 3.3 allowed good enough for #2 in the league, but that number was built vs weak rush Os. I don’t expect CCSU to be good running vs them – URI should handle them. Just wanted to provide some context on their high run D number.
I think for me this spread is right. Realistically it shouldn’t be lower than 2 TDs. Duquesne was just favored by 7 at CCSU, so if Duquesne was hosting CCSU that line would’ve been probably just under 2 TDs. Rhode Island should be the right side, but I just do not think it is for me. URI had been on my fade list often when they were favored and I have only played on them when dogged. So maybe I have kind of a mental block or something that has me not liking them to win by some kind of margin especially when I have seen CCSU hang tough in so many games.
FD has 14.5 and DK is 15.5. When it goes up at the other books I’m sure it will tick upward. If I had to make a pick it would be URI although I don’t think I am going to put any money on it. Maybe an alt line if I can get it below 14 without too much juice. A lot of typing for me to say I’m not betting it.
