The Sports Cruncher's 2015 CFB Week 10 Lines & Market Plays

T

TheSportsCruncher

Pretty much a regular
Going to kick things off with a write up for the Tuesday night game. I'll post my lines & plays together on my cheat sheet on Thursday.

Northern Illinois @ Toledo

Tuesday night MACtion is fun...but frequently unpredictable, as those who've tried to win betting on these mid-week games can attest to. Time to crunch the numbers, and look deeper inside them than usual, too (building some new metrics and am using them to analyze this game).

Home team Toledo opened the season with two close, impressive P5 wins against Arkansas and Iowa State. Since then they've been on a G5 tear, tearing up these opponents by an average of 26.8 points. Toledo has certainly faced the softer part of its' schedule in its' last five games -- is NIU going to be a big step up in quality?

Where Toledo narrowly beat its' two P5 opponents, Northern Illinois narrowly lost to both of theirs, but they faced tougher defenses in those games against Ohio State and Boston College. NIU is the only team to allow BC more than 200 rushing yards this year, though they held BC to pretty near their season average in yards per carry. Defensively they did a good job against Ohio State.

Toledo should have a decent game running the ball, though NIU has done a good job defending the run against teams as good or better than Toledo. Toledo has been better running the ball when Kareem Hunt has played -- he missed a few early games. Kareem, though, is just part of a 4-headed rushing attack monster that features 4 backs who average over 5 yards per carry. That's somebody fresh going for 5+ all game long.

It looks like NIU has had some vulnerability defending the pass against teams in which they may have game planned stopping the run (BC and Ball State), but they've done well defending the pass against pass heavy or balanced offenses. Last year Toledo only passed the ball on 38% of downs in games in which they either led or trailed by a score or less after three quarters. If memory serves they dealt with many QB injuries last year. This year with a healthy Phillip Ely Toledo is passing the ball a lot more, even in games with comfortable second half leads.

NIU has had only one exceptional game running the ball, and that came a couple of games ago on the road at Miami of Ohio, a team with a bottom 30 run defense. Against the 2nd worst run defense of EMU they averaged 1.3 yards less per carry than EMU usually allows. Against the three teams ranked 74th or better at run defense that NIU has played they've only averaged 2.8 ypc. Toledo ranks 30th. There's ample evidence that NIU will have a tough day on the ground in this game.

Throwing the ball NIU has had two really good games against two bottom 30 pass defenses...and that is it. Against the only three better than average pass defenses NIU has faced (ranked 9th, 33rd and 37th), they were absolutely horrible throwing the ball, averaging only 3.1 yards per pass in those three games. Against the much softer pass defenses they've played since they've fared better, but still threw for a smaller ypp average than 2 of their 3 opponents usually allow. Unfortunately for NIU Toledo has my 46nd ranked pass defense.

NIU hasn't had a game this year where they've excelled at both running and passing the football, and they've played five FBS teams with weaker defenses than Toledo -- some of them much weaker. Home/Away splits haven't affected their run offense numbers, but when passing they've been much, much worse on the road (the games against Ohio State and Boston College hurt those numbers, but still only 3.5 ypp against Central Michigan!) All in all, it looks like NIU is in for a tough night offensively at Toledo.

Toledo shouldn't light up the scoreboard either, but with a more balanced offense this year it should keep NIU from cheating against the run. If NIU does cheat, Toledo will find more success through the air then they rate to have. I recommended an investment on Toledo -7 when the line opened, and still think it's worth it all the way up to -10. I also like the Under for a small play. Both teams do play at an above average speed of pace on offense, but defensive advantages in the match ups should limit the scoring.

Final score prediction: NIU 20 -- Toledo 36
 
Thx, all. Here's the TSC MUG for tonight's game:

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Weird first half. I have Under 60 and 63 two separate plays. I'm going to add 2nd half Under 28.5 (EV) for .6 unit. Great stand alone play. I'd play it for a full unit if not for my game action.
 
Wow, lol. NIU has two huge injuries and then catches the breaks on ALL the big plays the rest of the game (at least from what I saw, lol). At the very least caught a break that NIU was just able to run out the clock at the end of the game so I could come out a little ahead with the Under plays. Still, what a choke job by Toledo, especially in light of the NIU injuries.
 
TheSportsCruncher said:
Wow, lol. NIU has two huge injuries and then catches the breaks on ALL the big plays the rest of the game (at least from what I saw, lol). At the very least caught a break that NIU was just able to run out the clock at the end of the game so I could come out a little ahead with the Under plays. Still, what a choke job by Toledo, especially in light of the NIU injuries.
Click to expand...



weird & choke describe this game and toledo perfectly
 
There was some shady calls in this game. First I saw a clear targeting on NIU that was not called on a punt return where the NIU player clearly targeted the defenseless players head. Then on that last scoring drive by NIU offensive PI was clear as day when the NIU player pushed off on Toledo...no call on 3rd and long. Then on the FG attempt phantom call on leverage penalty that sets them up for the TD. I did not even mention all of the offensive holding calls on that last drive.
 
BOL this week Cruncher, yea I was with Toledo last night too and felt the sting. Oh well, would feel weird winning a week game hahaha
 
Thx guys, write up for tonight's game:

Ohio @ Bowling Green

I do think Bowling Green will win pretty handily tonight, though perhaps not by the 38 points my lines project. I think there has to be some regression to the mean in this game, as both teams have been experiencing some extreme highs and lows in their run and pass offenses and defenses.

Let's start with what I think probably won't be responsible for the eventual Bobcat bludgeoning -- the passing match ups. Does that surprise you, as BGSU has a top 10 rated pass offense?

Ohio has just an average pass defense, but there are reasons to believe they won't let BGSU throw for the 11.3 yards per pass average they have against their conference foes in the last four games. None of those four teams had horrible pass defenses, either, actually, in spite of being the mid-tier MAC teams one and all. Ohio has surrendered less than 7 yards per pass in conference play this year, but mostly against some pretty bad offenses. The one exception is Western Michigan, who has a good pass offense. Ohio held them to 6.9 ypp, 1.2 ypp less than WMU usually averages.

So there's a chance that Ohio holds BGSU to an 8+ ypp average or thereabout tonight. My numbers project higher, at 9+, and here's why: while Ohio held WMU below their ypp average, they've still allowed teams to meet or beat their ypp average in 5 of 7 games this year. No team except Minnesota had a really good game throwing against them, and we've seen that Minnesota is capable of doing that on any given day, apparently, judging by their near win versus Michigan last week with a great day passing the ball. Ultimately, Ohio hasn't faced a pass offense as good as BGSU's this season, and they are on the road, where their pass defense hasn't been as good either. They've had some extra time to prepare for this game, we'll see if it helps.

Ohio's passing game started off the season pretty well but has strangely been pretty bad against the weak conference pass defenses they've faced. BGSU doesn't have a very good pass defense, but with the little bit of extra time to prepare for this game you'd have to think that Ohio gets its' passing game back on track a little here, because God help them, if they don't, it's going to get beyond ugly.

So, BGSU likely won't pass the ball at the amazing levels they have lately, while Ohio could certainly improve on their recent poor passing performances. If this happens, can BGSU still win by 20+ points? Yes, and it's because of the rush match ups.

You may be surprised to know that by my rankings Ohio has a bottom five rush defense. If memory serves one of their top defense players went down 2-3 weeks ago and Ohio's defense instantly week to shreds. It might have been LB Poling. At any rate, they were still below average when their whole squad was healthy. They gave up a whopping 430 rush yards to WMU two games ago, and let BUFF run for a full yard higher than their season ypc average in a game where BUFF had the lead pretty much start to finish. How do you think they'll do defending the run against BGSU when they have to worry about the pass so much?

BGSU has been okay running the ball, and that's been against a pretty tough schedule of run defenses. In this last month of blow outs they've still done well enough with the run to convert 3rd downs and keep the ball away from the opponent, averaging 172 rush yards in conference play. They've also run it for 54% of their plays in conference, much more than the out of conference games that saw them tied or trailing entering the fourth quarter (oddly enough they were tied after 3 quarters 3 games in a row against MD, MEM and PUR). So yeah, they rate to run the ball a fair amount in this game. Ohio can't cheat against the run or pass without getting burned in this game.

Conversely, Ohio's run game is disintegrating as the season progresses. They might have the worst rush offense in the FBS over their last 4 games, it's been that bad. After playing and struggling against two good running teams to start the season, TENN and MD, BGSU's rush defense has been much better. Sure, they haven't faced even one above average run offense in that span, but they've still held those opponents to almost a full yard less than their usual ypc average. Um, yeah, Ohio's run offense, as mentioned, is not above average.

Putting it all together, it looks like Ohio will have to rely on a passing game that has struggled mightily lately to stay in this game. At the same time, Ohio won't be able to stop BGSU on land or by air. Look for BGSU to get out to a double digit halftime lead and lean on the run in the second half, adding a few more scores while mostly keeping the ball away from Ohio.

Final Score Prediction: Ohio 14 -- BGSU 52 (though even that seems a bit high to me, lol. 40+ at the minimum though, I'm pretty sure).
 
I played and recommended 3 units on Bowling Green -13 when the line opened, the biggest unit size I recommend. Have obviously picked up some great line value, haven't decided on whether to buy back any or not, as I project such a big blowout (though I think because of the way these things go it ends up being a little bit closer).

I'm way ahead on sides on the season, but I seem to run bad when I post the TSCMUG's. Time to break that jinx! lol

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Agreed...biggest problem I see for Ohio is that BGSU actually has a decent defense this year
 
Aw shucks, I guess I'll buy back Ohio +21 (-108 5D) for .8 unit. I think I'm just lighting that $ on fire, but the MAC continues to be the font of all unpredictability this year, as the G5 conferences are more prone to being, imo. Who knows, maybe ONCE this year I'll hit one of these middles I've set up.
 
27-14 BGSU at the half. Terrible play calling on their part, though, when they got the ball back with 2:40 to play. Even without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, why are you throwing bombs at a time when it's critical to manage the clock and make sure your opponent doesn't get the ball back with time left to score, or at they very least without their time outs left? You need to run the ball there to increase your chances of not going three and out, and to use up some clock.Super cocky, way too cocky, and if not for some Ohio penalties Ohio would've put points on the board as a result, which gives Ohio the chance to get right back in the game starting the 2nd half with the ball.
 
Thursday Night Best Bets for College Football 11/05/15

Appalachian State -12.5 vs Arkansas State & Over 55

I recommended a 2 unit investment on opener, and then watched the line trickle downward before rebounding back to the opener today. Oh, how the market has lost its' confidence in App St., lol. I did not bet on App St. at all early in the season, and the first time I got involved with them was to bet Wyoming against them in week #5, a game Wyoming covered late but could have been in all the way as the Cowboys gained a lot of yards before turning it over multiple times in near torrential conditions. As the season has progressed, though, and App St. has turned in dominating performance after dominating performance, I've backed them in two of the last three weeks, where they crushed UL-Monroe to cover, and then last week as they hugely failed to cover against Troy, a game they barely survived in Triple OT.

I was worried about last week's game going in for a couple of reasons. #1 - it was a potential let down spot, even at home, after the huge win against their massive rival Georgia Southern the week before. Couple that with the fact that they'd been on a good run for many weeks and you could just see how they might not be feeling the full urgency required to cover such a large spread. #2 - Troy was primed for an offensive bounce back. Troy had a really bad stretch of 2-3 games when QB Silvers was injured. He'd come back the week before and played pretty decently. In spite of throwing a pick 6 on his first play of the game, Silvers did in fact lead the team back to a near huge upset.

Hopefully that game put a scare and the fear of big dogs into App St. and they come out ready to play tonight, even if it's been off of a short week. There is of course, the risk that they fall into an even deeper complacency trap after the emotional relief of a close win, even when favored by so much.

We know App St. has a great offense and pretty good run defense, with a somewhat suspect pass defense. Let's look at Arkansas State, then.

First off, ARST does not have a good defense. They aren't terrible, but they're below average and are equally vulnerable to the run and pass. They've had a couple of bright spots -- they had a strange outlier of good run defense against Toledo in week #4, and didn't let a poor running Southern Alabama team get almost anything on the ground in week #7. Beyond that they've been average to poor, with especially bad games against Idaho and UL-Lafayette. There's ample reason to believe App St. will have a good day on the ground here, at least somewhere near their usual averages. ARSTs' pass defense had some good games early on, but has been slipping the past month. Last week they gave up 9.1 ypp to an underrated Georgia State passing game. A team like ARST is always in a bad position when they opponents' offense has run and pass match up advantages that leave you not being able to key on either one. App St. is a run heavy team, running on about 70% of their plays, so when they do pass, they do so with great success and a very high ypp average. Cheat against their run at your own peril.

ARST is a better running team when QB Knighten is in the game, that much is clear. But are they a better passing team? Not really. They've only averaged 5.5 ypp in conference play this year, with Knighten in there for more than half of that action. I mean, have you watched him play? Other than one lobbed up deep ball that his receiver outplays a corner for each game he's not good for much else besides some short stuff. So yeah, it's not a good match up for ARST, who prefer to go up against a team with a weaker run defense than pass defense.

In that game ARST trailed, at home, by a touchdown, to GAST, entering the 4th quarter. That is not a good sign. I think App St. outscores them by near a couple touchdowns each half, cruising to the cover on the strength of their run game in the 4th quarter.

Billy Walters hit the Under 59 thereabouts and earlier today. When the number got all the way down to 55 I took a unit on the Over. App. St. will get theirs -- hopefully ARST gets just enough to push this one Over while losing handily.

Final Score Prediction: App St. 44 -- ARST 17

Baylor -18.5 @ Kansas State & Under 69.5

Those were the recommended plays when the lines came out.

KSU HC Bill Snyder may be a wizard, but a wizard at least needs some props or tools to make his magic work. In QB Hubener he has a broken wand, someone completely unable to conjure any sort of offensive magic right now. Baylor's defense might not be great, but they're not bad, and certainly capable of getting some stops against KSU. KSU will certainly want to run the ball a lot, and eat a lot of clock between every play as well. Their only chance is to shorten the number of possessions each team has in this game, and hope to get lucky on both sides of the ball. Baylor will have the luxury of committing an extra defender to stopping the run and trying to bait the KSU QB into mistakes. Baylor's gambling defense has already helped them to a +10 turnover margin this year, compared to KSU's -2.

Baylor will be starting frosh QB Stidham for the first time for the broken necked Collins. I have a feeling he'll be fine. Baylor should still play at their break neck speed (too soon?), in start contrast to what KSU wants to do. Baylor is still a run first team that will set up numerous good passing opportunities for whatever QB is in the game. KSU has a pretty mediocre run defense this year, but a decent pass defense, so expect Baylor to run as much as situationally possible. I don't think you'll find them in 3rd and long on too many occasions.

With both teams running a lot, the pace of play cancelling each other out, more or less, I expect this game to play to the Under. KSU will probably still struggle to pass the ball, and we're not sure how close Stidham will come to matching Collin's numbers for a full game.

Final Score Projection: Baylor 47 -- Kansas State 18

Mississipi St. -6.5 @ Missouri

MSST was the recommended play when the lines came out.

Missouri's offense has been bad, while MSST's defense has been better than expected. MSST has a good QB in Dak Prescott. I think they score enough against even a good MIZZ defense to get the cover. I would have played the Under if it got to 44, but I didn't see it get quite there, and it has since settled at 42.

Final Score Prediction: Mississippi State 30 -- Missouri 13

Buffalo @ Kent State Under 47 & 48.5

I recommended a unit on the Under 47 when it first opened, and then doubling down with another when the line went up to 48.5. Yeah, we got good value on these.

I played Kent St. at +0.5 for the first half earlier in the day when they were still an underdog. The line has since swung all the around to making them a one point favorite, which is exactly what I think the line should be.

Kent should have the better day running the ball, and the better overall defense. Buffalo has a better passing game, for sure, but having that as your only strength isn't the best recipe for wins on the road.

Ball State @ Western Michigan

My line is WMU -14.4, so yeah, not seeing any value there. I profile the game as an Over+, but there are definite weather concerns last I checked. Plenty of other games for action tonight, going to sit this one out, lol.

Nevada @ Fresno St.

Thought about putting a ML play in on FRES, but now that the line has come down some I still might for a little, but not as a posted play. Fresno has a good enough run game with M. Walker to beat a poor Nevada team that doesn't travel particularly well.
 
Well, a little spike in the Fresno line means I can get the ML at +170 at 5D. I'll take a piece of that for a half unit.

Looks like I had 1.2 units each on those Kent Unders. I'll buy back .8 unit on the Over 43.

Since I didn't pick up any value on App -12.5 going to ride out the two units there, no big deal, I like the position and the amount.
 
The only play I recommended for tonight is the Under on the Temple @ SMU game. The line opened at 58.5 and I recommended 1.2 units Under. The line bumped up to 59.5 and I recommended another 1.2 units Under again. My total for the game is 47.6 so I anticipated a big push down, which didn't take too many days to get there. I'm only going to buy back .5 unit on the Over 51 (-102 5D) as I think there is still value on the Under, even at 51.
 
Final look at the week #9 cheat sheet. Might have been my best week overall for gaining value versus the openers. I was still over 50% ATS on all sides last week, but I've noticed a creep of high spreads and now favoring more favorites each week to cover the spread, versus the higher % of dogs I saw consistently earlier in the season. I took a small measure to combat that this week, but still have some too high spreads, imo. It's one thing if the market instantly agrees with me and drives the lines up closer to mine, but that has not happened on several of my high lines, and so far the market has been right on those where they've gone a point or two in the other direction, like on Kansas State and Arkansas State last night. But that's not the case on all of these high lines. Some of the high lines have still ended up being right on, I nailed Bowling Green winning by 38, but looking at the total yards it's pretty clear that game could have been closer if Ohio had been able to finish drives. Total yards aren't super indicative, though, in many cases. BGSU did have a higher ypc and a much higher ypp average. Mississippi State also won by the predicted 18 points. Missouri ended up with the higher ypc average, while MSST had the much higher ypp average. So two of the high spreads were right on, while the other 3 ended up being way off, with two of them losing outright. App St. actually dominated the first half but gave up two defensive scores to ARST. And then I think App St. just totally ran out of gas in the second half. Some combination of back to back emotional wins and a short week that affected them more than ARST led to a defensive collapse and a usually dominant run game that just couldn't get it done. They had every statistical advantage in the world in that game against ARST. You can't even use the SOS argument App in that game, as their strength of schedule is pretty similar to ARST. And Toledo -- apparently their lot in life is to choke against NIU.

So this week, 2 of 5 big spreads were right on, and 2 of the 3 losers were covering at some point in their games. In the one that wasn't covering at any point, App St., they statistically dominated the first half and would have been covering at the half if not for two defensive scores allowed...probably. But like I said, it's when the market doesn't agree with me that I worry, so being a constant tinkerer I'm going to see what I can do about the high spread creep I've noticed lately.

As for my totals, they've been highly accurate even if totally absent of any luck for winning. Recommended plays were 19-2 on being on the right side of line moves. This week they've gotten off to a good start, and I felt much more confident in my total plays than side plays entering this week, as I feel like I really jumped some good numbers.

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Hey man - do you really think FIU is only 6 points better than Charlotte at home? I can see that is one of your largest discrepancies for week 10. BOL this weekend
 
agree with that one. only time youll ever catch me betting UNCC. what is your thoughts on the GaSt game? I took +3 but not feeling too good about it
 
I've had pretty crap luck on teasers this year (had MICH -2 vs MSU ties win to finish up a teaser, STAN -3 ties win to finish up a teaser last week, and LOU -3 ties to win a teaser last week as well -- Gawddammit! lol), but I can't resist this one:

1 Unit (5.5 points ties win +1.01 5D): UNC -2 vs Duke & WVU -3 vs TTU.
 
College football can be a funny thing.

My line for the UTEP game was UTEP +4.9 O/U 58.6. The line opened at +6.5 O/U 60 and closed at +4 O/U 56.5.
My line for the SJSU game was SJSU +12.2 O/U 54.3. The line opened at +12 O/U 56.5 and closed at +12 O/U 54.5
My line for the SMU game was SMU +13.3 O/U 47.6. The line opened at +11.5 O/U 58.5 and closed at +13.5 O/U 50.

Which play did I recommend investing on early, can you guess? Yup, the SMU Under which ended up going for 100 points.

College football can be a funny thing.
 
On to the buy backs. A lot of the games I set up for some buy backs are 9 AM my time games. I barely get up in time for that, lol.

I find it's usually better to wait until the last minute to get the best buy back line, but I don't want to have to worry about getting the ones in the morning where I've already picked up some good line value. There are a few more I'll wake up and hope I've gotten a little more movement my way.

***These are buy backs/middles which means I bet the opposite side of these for more earlier in the week***

NW ML (-105) 1.6 units
UCF +17 @ TULSA (-105 5D) .6 UNIT
FAU @ WKU UNDER 68 (-106 5D) .9 UNIT
VAN @ FLA OVER 36.5 (-108 5D) .6 UNIT
LSU @ ALA OVER 45 1 UNIT (Late game but can't imagine this one going any lower, and will probably see some buy backs creeping it back up tomorrow.)
UTAH @ WASH OVER 43.5 .5 UNIT (-103 5D) (I think this one has bottomed out too.)
 
Bad luck with crap red zone scoring on the Overs, and the 2nd half plays bad so far, but it's week #10 and I finally hit my first middle set up of the year, lol. And not just one, but two! Had Penn St. +3 and +2 and NW ML, and then Tulsa -11.5 and UCF +17.

Too bad Vandy couldn't hang onto upset Florida, that would have been funny.
 
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