Week 9 in the FCS (5 to go)

I tell my buddy I spend my Fridays hitting refresh every 30 secs stalking FCS lines. Oh yeah? He replies. Like North Dakota St and SDSU? Nope. Robert Morris and Duquesne.
 
s--k said:
USD has failed to score a TD the last two years vs the Jacks. The O is more mature this year but it is kind of the same. The USD D has been amazingly good considering what they lost off last years team.

I took Under for a little. Didn’t love the number (48.5). Both teams strength is D and running the ball. SDSU does feel down a notch and it did before the ssn started ( which still keeps them above most everyone else). Lack of competitiveness at Ok St revealed it right away. They seemed to get back to normal by mid season but then again last week we saw the limitations their O has when going against another top D.

I haven’t made any opinion on the side, just figured the neither teams hits 30 in this one and they in the low/mid 20s. Would’ve rather seen a low 50s total. It’s not going up though.
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You touched a bit why I’m taking the side as I see this as a low scoring grind it out 17-10 type game so whenever I expect a low total, I keep an eye out for a decent number of points with the dog.
 
CPA-hole said:
I tell my buddy I spend my Fridays hitting refresh every 30 secs stalking FCS lines. Oh yeah? He replies. Like North Dakota St and SDSU? Nope. Robert Morris and Duquesne.
Click to expand...

My friends still haven't adapted to my viewing patterns. They ask me what the big games of the week are (like top 10 and stuff). How about Idaho at UC Davis? They're like "who?"
 
Got a few more here before bed

Mississippi Valley State at Arkansas Pine Bluff – MVSU posted some of their best offensive numbers of the year last week vs Bethune. MVSU is bad on a weekly basis, so these aren’t good, but better for them. Ran for 136y (3.9). Their ssn avg is just 50. Previous high was 109. Their 311 total yards and 4.7 ypp were also season highs. Their ssn avg was just 197 with a ypp of 3.02. Previous high was 303 4.3 just a couple weeks ago. And the yardage deficit was the smallest it has been all year, -6. Their previous ‘best’ was being outgained by 143 yards. That yardage vs Bethune didn’t translate into better scoring, just 10 pts on Bethune Cookman, but the potential was there. They had three 70y drives and one was SOD at the B06. Likewise their D had their best statistical game, limiting Bethune to just 317y and 20 pts – both ssn lows for the MVSU D. This is what can happen when one bad team plays another bad team. Bethune was just a little bit better and had a 20y TD drive after a fumble recovery. Again this week MVSU plays another bad team, Ark PB. PB has just one win on the year, a 21-17 win over PV on Friday night 2 games ago. They followed that up with a solid game at Grambling, lost 21-31 but the game was played closer than that. Grambling tacked one on late after PB was SOD deep in own territory within the final 2min. They only managed 332y (4.4) which is about their SWAC avg. The last two weeks their D appears to have been pretty solid, limiting PV to just 365y (5.2) and Grambling to just 310 (5.6). Grambling has actually had 3 games in which they were held below 300 ttl yards this year, so yielding just 310 isn’t necessarily an accomplishment. Of note, Grambling was avg just 3.15 rush ypc in the 6 games prior to last week. They ran for 5.4 ypc on PB. And holding PV to 365? Well in their other SWAC games PV was avg just 281 ypg, so they were 84y over their ypg average vs the PB D. PB has not had a ttl yard edge over any opponent this year with the exception of Northwestern State (even with PV). This is the definition of a weak favorite, Arkansas Pine Bluff. But MVSU just played an equally bad Bethune Cookman team last week and failed to cover in a 10 pt loss as a 7.5 pt road dog. But it was close, a FG with under 4min left put BC ahead of the spread and provided for the 10 pt win. It is tempting to continue to fade Valley, teams like Bethune and now PB just aren’t good teams to do it with. When bad teams play eachother anything can happen. That is how PB beat PV. PB was a 9 pt home dog, but as PV is a poor favorite, PB upset them. Valley’s chances were likely better last week at home than here on the road, but it is possible. In fact, the last time PB was a favorite, they were -2 last year at Valley….and they lost! 42-17 MVSU won with a 414-409 yard edge (+2 TOs). That was Valley’s last win. They did it before…I agree there is more to like with PB but it's still pretty ugly.

Eastern Illinois at UT Martin – EIU has been a huge disappointment this year. Just 1-6 after going 7-5 last year! And they mostly have the same team, preseason they were picked as a contender for their league. But instead of taking a step forward they have regressed massively, that or last year was a huge overachievement. In losses vs Lindenwood and Tennessee State, EIU had a lot of empty yards. This resulted in total yard edges in both losses, EIU led Lindenwood 17-0 but lost 25-28 (2 TDs on 5 RZ trips). Vs TSU EIU only trailed 17-20 at one point, but lost 17-41! Two drives to the T33 and T34 plus two RZ poss to the T04 and T16 resulted in zero pts. But those were the bad teams EIU has played. Vs SEMO EIU trailed 14-38 4Q and thanks to garbage time they made that final 27-38. Vs Illinois State, EIU lost 7-31 and were outgained by 326! That is the kind of team UT Martin is so EIU figures to have a bad game again. UT Martin is behind the 8 ball for the league title, but still have hopes of an atlarge playoff bid with 2 losses and after being left out last year they know the importance of taking care of business each week. And they have been. Beat a bit of a surging W ILL team (surging I mean when W ILL faces other bad teams), beat the Leathernecks 45-17 after they led 45-3. Beat Gardner Webb 35-17 after they led 35-3. UTM O was limited at Kennesaw, but their D held that team to just 215y! Have to think that UT Martin would be the play here. I can’t lay 15.5 even though that FanDuel line is low compared to PR. Perhaps I still remember…UT Martin was a 14 pt road fav last year at EIU and they won by 1 in OT because EIU had a failed 2pt attempt. EIU was better last year, but that spread, -14 on the road a game that was not supposed to be close was nearly a UTM loss.

Western Illinois at Lindenwood – Western Illinois have won 3 of their last 4! That’s a wow. Now one of those was something called McKendree, beat a bad Charleston Southern 31-20 (outgained 329-431). Beat a sometimes bad Tennessee Tech 37-21 (had a 446-330 yard edge). The loss in this span was to UT Martin by 28 who is pretty good. Lindenwood is not pretty good. They are kind of a hard team to get ahead of. They just lost to Gardner Webb last week and took a ton of action before KO being bet down to just a 1.5 pt road dog after being around 6/6.5 pt dog. GW was up on them 42-21 end 3Q! Lindenwood had a strong game vs Charleston Southern, then lost to Tennessee State at home the week before with just 280y of O (lost 3 TOs). Lindenwood is 1-1 ATS as a fav and lost vs TSU straight up as a fav. CSU played these two in consecutive weeks and if that is used for comparison it reflects poorly on W ILL and favorably on Lindenwood. Lindenwood kept a bad CSU O down (197y no offensive TDs allowed) while CSU gained 431 on W ILL (325y rush), it was by most any measure CSU’s best offensive game of the year even though they only scored 20 pts. I think this game is an Over. 61.5 on FanDuel - it is less than the PR projections. Lindenwood is 4-4 on totals. The two recent Unders have been vs bad offensive teams/more defensive teams like CSU and TSU. The two recent Overs Lindenwood D allowed GW 491y and EIU 458y. W ILL is 4-2 to the Over and the two Unders missed by a combined 4 pts. Avg total for W ILL is 55.5 an the Lindenwood totals have averaged 50.13. So by those standards this total is higher than typical for these two. Last year these two combined for 83 on a 60.5 pt total with Lindenwood winning 43-40 with yards nearly even. W ILL was a 7 pt favorite! Now they are 8.5 pt dog despite bagging some recent wins? It’s a totally different team this year that started off the year bad, but they’ve found some confidence. I don’t know how wise this is, but with recently being a thing for the W ILL team and some inconsistencies with Lindenwood, the +8.5 is attractive to me and I think these offenses should move it on eachother so will go Over for a little as well.

Gardner Webb at SEMO – I have nothing against SEMO. But I hear some media people talking about potential playoff seeding and where SEMO fits in, with some scenarios of them being a 4 seed? I know we should judge teams based off their best games vs the best teams, but I see what they’ve done vs some pretty bad teams. 26-13 at CSU and 19-0 vs NW State. Just 3 TDs in 13 RZ trips in those two games. Sure they should’ve won by more, but don’t you think there is a problem when a team can’t score in the RZ vs the worst teams they play? And it has shown up other times this year. At New Mex St 0 TDs on two RZ trips, lost. 2 TDs on 4 RZ trips vs Tenn Tech, won because of some outstanding D. Paxton DeLaurent is very good QB and SEMO as a whole is strong. I just think some of their deficiencies are being overlooked. Like as this season has gone on, they can’t run. At All! 33att-108y vs CSU. 17att-37y vs TTU. 21att-19y vs EIU. 45att-183y vs NW State (4.1 ypc is among the lowest NW St D has allowed this year by the way). That’s the last 4 weeks. They did have some decent rushing games earlier this year, I just wonder, what has happened? Their last 4 opponents have a combined record of 4-25!!! SEMO beat North Alabama week 0 and UT Martin – those are their only 2 quality wins. Beat SIU after their QB got hurt so it’s not like that was SIU back when they were good. Anyway, enough of that. Vs Garnder Webb! Oh, GW is 2-5 so SEMO playing murder’s row here. So they are 2-2 ATS the last 4 weeks, all as DD favs, because of their RZ scoring problems. Their O is moving it fine, mostly on DeLauren’t arm and their D is keeping teams down. Only EIU got yards on them which mostly came late in the game when they were down big. Outgaining the last 4 by avg of 172.5 ypg. Gardner Webb seemed to be figuring some things out early in the season and then got blown out by TTU of all teams and UT Marin in back-to-back weeks. They came off their bye and played a really strong offensive game vs Lindenwood (491 ttl yards 6.6 ypp, 306y rushing, 76% completions, 60% 3rd downs). Now maybe playing Lindenwood you can do those things, but you have to do it, so credit to GW. GW had a similar game earlier vs Presbyterian then they followed that up with a 31 pt loss at home to TTU! So hard to assume there will be carry over at SEMO for them. I don’t know about this one. I don’t want to lay it. If it gets bet up I may take GW as EIU showed the back door could be open (SEMO was -10.5 there and won by 11 after some late EIU scoring).

Jackson State at Bethune Cookman – Classic let down spot for Jackson is going to keep me away here plain and simple. Jackson off their biggest home game of the year in a game they won in the 4Q vs the team that was going to stand in their way to win the SWAC East. Jackson State should roll. They should’ve rolled last year too as 20.5 home favs, they won just 22-16. I won’t be involved.

Princeton at Harvard – Princeton was a mess earlier this year, but for now, they have pulled it together. They were a mess last year as well and beat Harvard 21-14 as a 8.5 pt home dog! They held Harvard to just 220 tll yards after the Crimson had averaged 418 ypg in their first 5! I wouldn’t expect that kind of D this year, Tigers have allowed 479 and 443 in their two Ivy games this year vs Columbia and Brown. Columbia ran for 269 (6.0) on them and Brown was pretty balanced actually 172 rush and 271 pass. That was Brown’s best game on the ground this year. Princeton is breaking in an entirely new LB unit and it seems to be showing in the run D. Brown ran for just 100y (3.3) and Columbia ran for just 108y (3.0) on last year’s Princeton D. A good Patriot rush O Lafayette ran for just 88y (2.6) on them last year. This year an average Patriot rush O Lehigh ran for 153 (3.6). So going to be a little different this time facing Harvard. The Crimson this year though have had a couple really terrific games passing with Craig and the Harvard run O seems to be down actually. Another unit that is down, the Harvard D. Well sometimes. Holy Cross puts up 523y on them (5.3)! HC ran for 246 (5.3)! Even Cornell got them for 5.8 ypc. Cornell completed 71% with a lot of short passes, but HC hit some big plays and completed 60% for 277. Brown accumulated over 400y on Harvard D as well. So it’s not looking to be the best defensive group with the new staff so far in Cambridge. Harvard D also not generating much in the sack department with just 7 in 5 games. Princeton does usually have a sub-par OL and they’ve again allowed a lot of sacks this year (20 in 5 games) and with the new QB it makes matters worse. I don’t know here, I really do not like Harvard as much of a favorite due to some of their defensive performances this year. I do think that the Princeton O is limited and that should be better for Crimson D. I’d probably rate Princeton O to the be the 4th weakest they will be playing here in game #6. Princeton pass D should be their strength right now, which helps matchup with what Harvard has been better at so far this year. Or will Harvard try to revert back to some of their old styles to better control games so they don’t end up with repeats like HC last week? This should be a game that the Harvard rush O can be leaned on…if they have the horses to do it. Not sure here. I’d pick Harvard to win, which I guess is pretty easy given and 8.5 pt spread. Can’t pick a side ATS.

Montana at Northern Colorado – In Big Sky play Montana is averaging 43.7 ppg on O and allowing 41.3 ppg. Bobby Hauck’s Montana Grizzlies! Northern Colorado is scoring a league worst 15 ppg and allowing 33.3. I would certainly have to think that this game is going to greatly improve the Montana statistics on D as UNC’s O is pretty pedestrian. I had this line in my head at 25 and I see it is 28.5 which is above all the PRs. Montana should be fine, UNC’s D has shown to give up a lot of big plays on D and Montana’s O has probably been the best it has ever been in terms of what they can do both running and passing right now given the skill players on hand. That D though. Will it matter this week? Not sure if any of the injured UNC QBs can come back this year. With Keone at QB it is been very run heavy and he has not been an effective passer. Sure they beat Weber. If you don’t know, Weber fumbled at the NC01 and the NC04 after 70+ yard drives and a third fumble in their own territory set UNC up for a short field TD. UNC’s game winning drive was impressive, but not like it should’ve gotten that far. Montana State beat them 55-17. Even Cal Poly beat them 28-7 with a 492-213 (6.9-3.3) yard edge. I think there are some ways that UNC’s O can stay on the field and possess the ball to limit the damage that Griz can do. Still I would’ve played Griz at a better number. As it is now, I will just move along.

Western Carolina at Mercer – Mercer’s O let them down in a big way. They were held below 300y in two SoCon games this year but the D was so dominant vs UTC and Wofford that didn’t matter. Vs Samford the O failed at such a high rate the D couldn’t make up for it. And now QB Smith is injured again. The last good team Mercer played, Chattanooga, they won 10-3. UTC was 0-for-12 3rd downs in that game. Samford by the way only converted 2 of 13 and Wofford 2 of 14, Princeton 3 of 12. That Mercer D gets off the field! I had wanted to take Western Carolina this week against them as a spot they could lose, but Samford jumped the gun on me. Think I might still like WCU a little, but at 3.5 it doesn’t feel right. WCU and Gonzales off splashy win at Furman. I remember some of their struggles however. Turnover problems vs Wofford, Elon and especially Campbell. Mercer D has potential to really cause problems much more than those teams did. And Gonzales got in trouble with INTs last year as well. In fact, WCU turned it over 6x in a home loss to Mercer last season (-3 net ratio). This line is probably where it is because of the QB injury for Mercer and the loss they took last week. Sometimes that happens. I think I project an upset next week and some random team does it this week and it ruins my plans.

New Hampshire at Villanova – Villanova had been a stay away from team this year, just one of the most underachieving teams in the country and it finally came to a head in Maine last week. Just 2-4 ATS vs some not very great FCS teams, failed to cover vs YSU, LIU, Towson and now Maine. And it was mostly turnovers against Maine, but Nova never got back in the game and ended up with a 214-341 yardage deficit (3.1-6.1). Even vs Stony Brook, who is turning out to be really decent, Nova covered that one thanks to a great 4Q because SB led 24-14 mid 3Q. It shouldn’t be this way at this point in the season, but if Nova can’t dominate on the ground, then they can’t win with Watkins and their passing game. One of the better QBs returning from 2023, Watkins is just 49.7% with a 6-2 ratio for 136.5 ypg after 7 games! Hard to figure they are going to all of a sudden get good. New Hampshire D has been pretty solid this year. URI just had one of their worst offensive games vs UNH D and the week before that Elon did have their worst game on O vs UNH D (only Elon game that was worse was vs Duke). So UNH D playing pretty well, but their O can not be trusted in the least right now. Their OL has really been bad, they can’t run and a once promising season from their new QB has gone to hell. I don’t know here, not good.

William & Mary at Stony Brook – One of the best stories this year is the new staff with some of their new players turning SB around. They are 5-2 and alive in the wide open CAA at 2-1. W&M is also 5-2 and 2-1 in league play. It’s like you kind of don’t think the SB success is real. But they scored 38 unanswered last week after Towson led 17-14 and racked up over 500y (did allow 405 7.5). Led Villanova 24-14 2H before a muffed punt started a run for Nova to score 28 unanswered on them. Nova did outgain them 432-310 (7.4-4.2). Then we have a collection of bad teams that SB beat to get to this point. William & Mary pretty strong. Only beat Campbell by 7 but led by 14 frequently in that one and Campbell cut it to 7 with under 2min to go. W&M lost at Towson with 3 lost W&M TOs turned into 21 Towson pts. I do have to say explained away or not, there have been a few games this year that W&M was only up 1 score or only won by 1 score when they should’ve been better than that. Take the Campbell game. W&M was a 17.5 pt home fav and never led by that many. They were only up by 3 on Furman late at home when Furman fumbled and W&M got a short TD under 1min to go to make that one a 10 pt win as 9 pt fav. Wofford was throwing in the EZ multiple times at the end back in week 3 as W&M only won that by 7 laying 10. Of course W&M has hammered a few teams as well. Just that they are a little uneven as favorites. 9.5 here on the road is pretty strong for them. W&M is 0-2 ATS on the FCS road this year. SB is 4-1 ATS as dogs, but some of that was so long ago before anyone knew that SB was about to be transformed. Villanova ran for 280 (7.2) on them and W&M always wants to and usually can run all over opponents. Even Towson ran for 247 (7.3) on SB in the loss. So W&M figures to have their way in that regard. Question is can the W&M D limit them? I really don’t know. Might think they can’t. Wofford, Furman, Towson and Campbell averaged 6.3 ypp on this Tribe D. Campbell passed on them and Towson ran on them. Might be an Over game. 54.5 isn’t exactly low, but W&M has gone Over every game this year. Their scores the last two weeks have averaged 62 ppg. SB started the year 5-0 to the Under, but they gone Over the last two weeks with an avg combined score of 71 ppg. That appears to be the best way to go here and maybe slight lean to SB with the pts.

Looks like I'm finding all the warts on teams this week and not finding much to like. Something like 1/3 of the schedule I will not have time to preview tomorrow. A couple games I purposefully want to dig into whether I post the paragraphs tomorrow morning I don't know.
 
s--k said:
Got a few more here before bed

Mississippi Valley State at Arkansas Pine Bluff – MVSU posted some of their best offensive numbers of the year last week vs Bethune. MVSU is bad on a weekly basis, so these aren’t good, but better for them. Ran for 136y (3.9). Their ssn avg is just 50. Previous high was 109. Their 311 total yards and 4.7 ypp were also season highs. Their ssn avg was just 197 with a ypp of 3.02. Previous high was 303 4.3 just a couple weeks ago. And the yardage deficit was the smallest it has been all year, -6. Their previous ‘best’ was being outgained by 143 yards. That yardage vs Bethune didn’t translate into better scoring, just 10 pts on Bethune Cookman, but the potential was there. They had three 70y drives and one was SOD at the B06. Likewise their D had their best statistical game, limiting Bethune to just 317y and 20 pts – both ssn lows for the MVSU D. This is what can happen when one bad team plays another bad team. Bethune was just a little bit better and had a 20y TD drive after a fumble recovery. Again this week MVSU plays another bad team, Ark PB. PB has just one win on the year, a 21-17 win over PV on Friday night 2 games ago. They followed that up with a solid game at Grambling, lost 21-31 but the game was played closer than that. Grambling tacked one on late after PB was SOD deep in own territory within the final 2min. They only managed 332y (4.4) which is about their SWAC avg. The last two weeks their D appears to have been pretty solid, limiting PV to just 365y (5.2) and Grambling to just 310 (5.6). Grambling has actually had 3 games in which they were held below 300 ttl yards this year, so yielding just 310 isn’t necessarily an accomplishment. Of note, Grambling was avg just 3.15 rush ypc in the 6 games prior to last week. They ran for 5.4 ypc on PB. And holding PV to 365? Well in their other SWAC games PV was avg just 281 ypg, so they were 84y over their ypg average vs the PB D. PB has not had a ttl yard edge over any opponent this year with the exception of Northwestern State (even with PV). This is the definition of a weak favorite, Arkansas Pine Bluff. But MVSU just played an equally bad Bethune Cookman team last week and failed to cover in a 10 pt loss as a 7.5 pt road dog. But it was close, a FG with under 4min left put BC ahead of the spread and provided for the 10 pt win. It is tempting to continue to fade Valley, teams like Bethune and now PB just aren’t good teams to do it with. When bad teams play eachother anything can happen. That is how PB beat PV. PB was a 9 pt home dog, but as PV is a poor favorite, PB upset them. Valley’s chances were likely better last week at home than here on the road, but it is possible. In fact, the last time PB was a favorite, they were -2 last year at Valley….and they lost! 42-17 MVSU won with a 414-409 yard edge (+2 TOs). That was Valley’s last win. They did it before…I agree there is more to like with PB but it's still pretty ugly.

Eastern Illinois at UT Martin – EIU has been a huge disappointment this year. Just 1-6 after going 7-5 last year! And they mostly have the same team, preseason they were picked as a contender for their league. But instead of taking a step forward they have regressed massively, that or last year was a huge overachievement. In losses vs Lindenwood and Tennessee State, EIU had a lot of empty yards. This resulted in total yard edges in both losses, EIU led Lindenwood 17-0 but lost 25-28 (2 TDs on 5 RZ trips). Vs TSU EIU only trailed 17-20 at one point, but lost 17-41! Two drives to the T33 and T34 plus two RZ poss to the T04 and T16 resulted in zero pts. But those were the bad teams EIU has played. Vs SEMO EIU trailed 14-38 4Q and thanks to garbage time they made that final 27-38. Vs Illinois State, EIU lost 7-31 and were outgained by 326! That is the kind of team UT Martin is so EIU figures to have a bad game again. UT Martin is behind the 8 ball for the league title, but still have hopes of an atlarge playoff bid with 2 losses and after being left out last year they know the importance of taking care of business each week. And they have been. Beat a bit of a surging W ILL team (surging I mean when W ILL faces other bad teams), beat the Leathernecks 45-17 after they led 45-3. Beat Gardner Webb 35-17 after they led 35-3. UTM O was limited at Kennesaw, but their D held that team to just 215y! Have to think that UT Martin would be the play here. I can’t lay 15.5 even though that FanDuel line is low compared to PR. Perhaps I still remember…UT Martin was a 14 pt road fav last year at EIU and they won by 1 in OT because EIU had a failed 2pt attempt. EIU was better last year, but that spread, -14 on the road a game that was not supposed to be close was nearly a UTM loss.

Western Illinois at Lindenwood – Western Illinois have won 3 of their last 4! That’s a wow. Now one of those was something called McKendree, beat a bad Charleston Southern 31-20 (outgained 329-431). Beat a sometimes bad Tennessee Tech 37-21 (had a 446-330 yard edge). The loss in this span was to UT Martin by 28 who is pretty good. Lindenwood is not pretty good. They are kind of a hard team to get ahead of. They just lost to Gardner Webb last week and took a ton of action before KO being bet down to just a 1.5 pt road dog after being around 6/6.5 pt dog. GW was up on them 42-21 end 3Q! Lindenwood had a strong game vs Charleston Southern, then lost to Tennessee State at home the week before with just 280y of O (lost 3 TOs). Lindenwood is 1-1 ATS as a fav and lost vs TSU straight up as a fav. CSU played these two in consecutive weeks and if that is used for comparison it reflects poorly on W ILL and favorably on Lindenwood. Lindenwood kept a bad CSU O down (197y no offensive TDs allowed) while CSU gained 431 on W ILL (325y rush), it was by most any measure CSU’s best offensive game of the year even though they only scored 20 pts. I think this game is an Over. 61.5 on FanDuel - it is less than the PR projections. Lindenwood is 4-4 on totals. The two recent Unders have been vs bad offensive teams/more defensive teams like CSU and TSU. The two recent Overs Lindenwood D allowed GW 491y and EIU 458y. W ILL is 4-2 to the Over and the two Unders missed by a combined 4 pts. Avg total for W ILL is 55.5 an the Lindenwood totals have averaged 50.13. So by those standards this total is higher than typical for these two. Last year these two combined for 83 on a 60.5 pt total with Lindenwood winning 43-40 with yards nearly even. W ILL was a 7 pt favorite! Now they are 8.5 pt dog despite bagging some recent wins? It’s a totally different team this year that started off the year bad, but they’ve found some confidence. I don’t know how wise this is, but with recently being a thing for the W ILL team and some inconsistencies with Lindenwood, the +8.5 is attractive to me and I think these offenses should move it on eachother so will go Over for a little as well.

Gardner Webb at SEMO – I have nothing against SEMO. But I hear some media people talking about potential playoff seeding and where SEMO fits in, with some scenarios of them being a 4 seed? I know we should judge teams based off their best games vs the best teams, but I see what they’ve done vs some pretty bad teams. 26-13 at CSU and 19-0 vs NW State. Just 3 TDs in 13 RZ trips in those two games. Sure they should’ve won by more, but don’t you think there is a problem when a team can’t score in the RZ vs the worst teams they play? And it has shown up other times this year. At New Mex St 0 TDs on two RZ trips, lost. 2 TDs on 4 RZ trips vs Tenn Tech, won because of some outstanding D. Paxton DeLaurent is very good QB and SEMO as a whole is strong. I just think some of their deficiencies are being overlooked. Like as this season has gone on, they can’t run. At All! 33att-108y vs CSU. 17att-37y vs TTU. 21att-19y vs EIU. 45att-183y vs NW State (4.1 ypc is among the lowest NW St D has allowed this year by the way). That’s the last 4 weeks. They did have some decent rushing games earlier this year, I just wonder, what has happened? Their last 4 opponents have a combined record of 4-25!!! SEMO beat North Alabama week 0 and UT Martin – those are their only 2 quality wins. Beat SIU after their QB got hurt so it’s not like that was SIU back when they were good. Anyway, enough of that. Vs Garnder Webb! Oh, GW is 2-5 so SEMO playing murder’s row here. So they are 2-2 ATS the last 4 weeks, all as DD favs, because of their RZ scoring problems. Their O is moving it fine, mostly on DeLauren’t arm and their D is keeping teams down. Only EIU got yards on them which mostly came late in the game when they were down big. Outgaining the last 4 by avg of 172.5 ypg. Gardner Webb seemed to be figuring some things out early in the season and then got blown out by TTU of all teams and UT Marin in back-to-back weeks. They came off their bye and played a really strong offensive game vs Lindenwood (491 ttl yards 6.6 ypp, 306y rushing, 76% completions, 60% 3rd downs). Now maybe playing Lindenwood you can do those things, but you have to do it, so credit to GW. GW had a similar game earlier vs Presbyterian then they followed that up with a 31 pt loss at home to TTU! So hard to assume there will be carry over at SEMO for them. I don’t know about this one. I don’t want to lay it. If it gets bet up I may take GW as EIU showed the back door could be open (SEMO was -10.5 there and won by 11 after some late EIU scoring).

Jackson State at Bethune Cookman – Classic let down spot for Jackson is going to keep me away here plain and simple. Jackson off their biggest home game of the year in a game they won in the 4Q vs the team that was going to stand in their way to win the SWAC East. Jackson State should roll. They should’ve rolled last year too as 20.5 home favs, they won just 22-16. I won’t be involved.

Princeton at Harvard – Princeton was a mess earlier this year, but for now, they have pulled it together. They were a mess last year as well and beat Harvard 21-14 as a 8.5 pt home dog! They held Harvard to just 220 tll yards after the Crimson had averaged 418 ypg in their first 5! I wouldn’t expect that kind of D this year, Tigers have allowed 479 and 443 in their two Ivy games this year vs Columbia and Brown. Columbia ran for 269 (6.0) on them and Brown was pretty balanced actually 172 rush and 271 pass. That was Brown’s best game on the ground this year. Princeton is breaking in an entirely new LB unit and it seems to be showing in the run D. Brown ran for just 100y (3.3) and Columbia ran for just 108y (3.0) on last year’s Princeton D. A good Patriot rush O Lafayette ran for just 88y (2.6) on them last year. This year an average Patriot rush O Lehigh ran for 153 (3.6). So going to be a little different this time facing Harvard. The Crimson this year though have had a couple really terrific games passing with Craig and the Harvard run O seems to be down actually. Another unit that is down, the Harvard D. Well sometimes. Holy Cross puts up 523y on them (5.3)! HC ran for 246 (5.3)! Even Cornell got them for 5.8 ypc. Cornell completed 71% with a lot of short passes, but HC hit some big plays and completed 60% for 277. Brown accumulated over 400y on Harvard D as well. So it’s not looking to be the best defensive group with the new staff so far in Cambridge. Harvard D also not generating much in the sack department with just 7 in 5 games. Princeton does usually have a sub-par OL and they’ve again allowed a lot of sacks this year (20 in 5 games) and with the new QB it makes matters worse. I don’t know here, I really do not like Harvard as much of a favorite due to some of their defensive performances this year. I do think that the Princeton O is limited and that should be better for Crimson D. I’d probably rate Princeton O to the be the 4th weakest they will be playing here in game #6. Princeton pass D should be their strength right now, which helps matchup with what Harvard has been better at so far this year. Or will Harvard try to revert back to some of their old styles to better control games so they don’t end up with repeats like HC last week? This should be a game that the Harvard rush O can be leaned on…if they have the horses to do it. Not sure here. I’d pick Harvard to win, which I guess is pretty easy given and 8.5 pt spread. Can’t pick a side ATS.

Montana at Northern Colorado – In Big Sky play Montana is averaging 43.7 ppg on O and allowing 41.3 ppg. Bobby Hauck’s Montana Grizzlies! Northern Colorado is scoring a league worst 15 ppg and allowing 33.3. I would certainly have to think that this game is going to greatly improve the Montana statistics on D as UNC’s O is pretty pedestrian. I had this line in my head at 25 and I see it is 28.5 which is above all the PRs. Montana should be fine, UNC’s D has shown to give up a lot of big plays on D and Montana’s O has probably been the best it has ever been in terms of what they can do both running and passing right now given the skill players on hand. That D though. Will it matter this week? Not sure if any of the injured UNC QBs can come back this year. With Keone at QB it is been very run heavy and he has not been an effective passer. Sure they beat Weber. If you don’t know, Weber fumbled at the NC01 and the NC04 after 70+ yard drives and a third fumble in their own territory set UNC up for a short field TD. UNC’s game winning drive was impressive, but not like it should’ve gotten that far. Montana State beat them 55-17. Even Cal Poly beat them 28-7 with a 492-213 (6.9-3.3) yard edge. I think there are some ways that UNC’s O can stay on the field and possess the ball to limit the damage that Griz can do. Still I would’ve played Griz at a better number. As it is now, I will just move along.

Western Carolina at Mercer – Mercer’s O let them down in a big way. They were held below 300y in two SoCon games this year but the D was so dominant vs UTC and Wofford that didn’t matter. Vs Samford the O failed at such a high rate the D couldn’t make up for it. And now QB Smith is injured again. The last good team Mercer played, Chattanooga, they won 10-3. UTC was 0-for-12 3rd downs in that game. Samford by the way only converted 2 of 13 and Wofford 2 of 14, Princeton 3 of 12. That Mercer D gets off the field! I had wanted to take Western Carolina this week against them as a spot they could lose, but Samford jumped the gun on me. Think I might still like WCU a little, but at 3.5 it doesn’t feel right. WCU and Gonzales off splashy win at Furman. I remember some of their struggles however. Turnover problems vs Wofford, Elon and especially Campbell. Mercer D has potential to really cause problems much more than those teams did. And Gonzales got in trouble with INTs last year as well. In fact, WCU turned it over 6x in a home loss to Mercer last season (-3 net ratio). This line is probably where it is because of the QB injury for Mercer and the loss they took last week. Sometimes that happens. I think I project an upset next week and some random team does it this week and it ruins my plans.

New Hampshire at Villanova – Villanova had been a stay away from team this year, just one of the most underachieving teams in the country and it finally came to a head in Maine last week. Just 2-4 ATS vs some not very great FCS teams, failed to cover vs YSU, LIU, Towson and now Maine. And it was mostly turnovers against Maine, but Nova never got back in the game and ended up with a 214-341 yardage deficit (3.1-6.1). Even vs Stony Brook, who is turning out to be really decent, Nova covered that one thanks to a great 4Q because SB led 24-14 mid 3Q. It shouldn’t be this way at this point in the season, but if Nova can’t dominate on the ground, then they can’t win with Watkins and their passing game. One of the better QBs returning from 2023, Watkins is just 49.7% with a 6-2 ratio for 136.5 ypg after 7 games! Hard to figure they are going to all of a sudden get good. New Hampshire D has been pretty solid this year. URI just had one of their worst offensive games vs UNH D and the week before that Elon did have their worst game on O vs UNH D (only Elon game that was worse was vs Duke). So UNH D playing pretty well, but their O can not be trusted in the least right now. Their OL has really been bad, they can’t run and a once promising season from their new QB has gone to hell. I don’t know here, not good.

William & Mary at Stony Brook – One of the best stories this year is the new staff with some of their new players turning SB around. They are 5-2 and alive in the wide open CAA at 2-1. W&M is also 5-2 and 2-1 in league play. It’s like you kind of don’t think the SB success is real. But they scored 38 unanswered last week after Towson led 17-14 and racked up over 500y (did allow 405 7.5). Led Villanova 24-14 2H before a muffed punt started a run for Nova to score 28 unanswered on them. Nova did outgain them 432-310 (7.4-4.2). Then we have a collection of bad teams that SB beat to get to this point. William & Mary pretty strong. Only beat Campbell by 7 but led by 14 frequently in that one and Campbell cut it to 7 with under 2min to go. W&M lost at Towson with 3 lost W&M TOs turned into 21 Towson pts. I do have to say explained away or not, there have been a few games this year that W&M was only up 1 score or only won by 1 score when they should’ve been better than that. Take the Campbell game. W&M was a 17.5 pt home fav and never led by that many. They were only up by 3 on Furman late at home when Furman fumbled and W&M got a short TD under 1min to go to make that one a 10 pt win as 9 pt fav. Wofford was throwing in the EZ multiple times at the end back in week 3 as W&M only won that by 7 laying 10. Of course W&M has hammered a few teams as well. Just that they are a little uneven as favorites. 9.5 here on the road is pretty strong for them. W&M is 0-2 ATS on the FCS road this year. SB is 4-1 ATS as dogs, but some of that was so long ago before anyone knew that SB was about to be transformed. Villanova ran for 280 (7.2) on them and W&M always wants to and usually can run all over opponents. Even Towson ran for 247 (7.3) on SB in the loss. So W&M figures to have their way in that regard. Question is can the W&M D limit them? I really don’t know. Might think they can’t. Wofford, Furman, Towson and Campbell averaged 6.3 ypp on this Tribe D. Campbell passed on them and Towson ran on them. Might be an Over game. 54.5 isn’t exactly low, but W&M has gone Over every game this year. Their scores the last two weeks have averaged 62 ppg. SB started the year 5-0 to the Under, but they gone Over the last two weeks with an avg combined score of 71 ppg. That appears to be the best way to go here and maybe slight lean to SB with the pts.

Looks like I'm finding all the warts on teams this week and not finding much to like. Something like 1/3 of the schedule I will not have time to preview tomorrow. A couple games I purposefully want to dig into whether I post the paragraphs tomorrow morning I don't know.
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Great stuff, as always.
 
First thing I noticed is Montana dropped to 27.5 from 28.5

Lack of trust of the Griz D?
Too many pts for a sometimes scrappy UNC team?
26.5 maybe I bite

Several games have moved a pt from late last night
 
s--k said:
First thing I noticed is Montana dropped to 27.5 from 28.5

Lack of trust of the Griz D?
Too many pts for a sometimes scrappy UNC team?
26.5 maybe I bite

Several games have moved a pt from late last night
Click to expand...
Holy Cross is -1.5. You have any interest in that?
 
It will likely be another game-time decision for the Cowboys at quarterback as starter Clifton McDowell continues to recover from a hand injury that has cost him to miss two games including last week’s loss at Incarnate Word. If the graduate transfer can’t go, McNeese will turn again to redshirt freshman Kamden Sixkiller. McNeese is 4-2 in games McDowell has started this season and lost just once in contests that he has been able to finish. He did practice this week.

Read more at: Cowboys face run-happy Nicholls - American Press
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CPA-hole said:
Holy Cross is -1.5. You have any interest in that?
Click to expand...

That is a tough game. Opened at 2.5. If it had been higher I was going to take Lafayette. Line says toss up, I say toss up as well. HC good O, bad D. Laf bad O, good D...I don't know
 
The games I have an overweight on are Richmond which was taken at open of 7.5. Columbia which I took at open +1.5 then chased the ML up a little. And Tarleton St which did move off the 1.5 it still was last night to 3.5 I see this morning. Very surprised it took so long for that line to move. Tarleton is a top 10 ranked team and Austin Peay is 3-4 but they feel worse than that record. So somebody hit that last night.

Those are the 3 that mean the most to me today.

Then I have 26 other bets and will likely be finding some more as the day goes on.
 
s--k said:
Tarleton is a top 10 ranked team and Austin Peay is 3-4 but they feel worse than that record. So somebody hit that last night.

Those are the 3 that mean the most to me today.
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so annoying

they couldn't wait a few hours and get 10x more down?
 
Tuskegee (4-1 in conference) has won 4 straight vs Central State (1-4 in conference) and 9 of the last 10

-330 on the road, eh, why not...
 
Now I'm just getting silly.

Walsh +161 at Ohio Dominican who I've never heard of.

Ohio Dominican has a very good record vs Walsh winning 10 straight, but only won 12-10 last year. Walsh is 4-3 this year. Their 4 wins are as many as they had in all of 2023 and 2022 combined. That sounds like an improved team. While Dominican is just 2-5. They were down last year also, but normally look like a 7 win type team. This is Walsh's time and team to snap the streak!
 
I already lost betting Colorado School of Mines in d2 this year. I think they had like a 30 game win streak reg season at the time. Lol.

MB never did have a Tarleton line for today. Smh.
 
Some of the Dll names really make me laugh. But how about the Wayne State Warriors and the Wayne State Wildcats. Two Wayne States?
 
s--k said:
Some of the Dll names really make me laugh. But how about the Wayne State Warriors and the Wayne State Wildcats. Two Wayne States?
Click to expand...
I think California University of Pennsylvania are the Vulcans.
 
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I took a shot at Lincoln PA / Elizabeth City St. under 47.5

Elizabeth City averages 14.3 ppg and hasn't had a game go over this number all year
Lincoln PA averages 13.1 ppg and has only scored more than 14 one time in 7 games this season
 
Slippery Rock is off today or I'd play them. But they have a Halloween night game vs Clarion. So I have something to look forward to.
 
At what point do you take Bryant? People betting Richmond like its free money

Last week they thought Richmond sucked by betting the shit out of Delaware
 
carolinablue said:
Mercyhurst still at 10.5 is tempting…thoughts?
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That is a lot of pts for Sacred Heart. I've said before, some games just don't register in my head. I wouldn't want to take SHU for sure. But would I want Mercyhurst? They are off bye. Maybe it's best foot forward week for them.
 
sleepy said:
At what point do you take Bryant? People betting Richmond like its free money

Last week they thought Richmond sucked by betting the shit out of Delaware
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I had Richmond on the pts last week.

Bryant could be starting new QB, maybe some of the move is news of that? Could be good or bad for them. Guest was pretty decent QB for them to get out of Coastal and he hasn't been bad. How the young QB plays and if he avoids turnovers would be the big thing as Richmond D probably going to get some turnovers.

Bryant is just 1-4 ATS as DD dogs this year. The one win was at Brown when they scored two TDs on 4th and long.

Should be a comfortable win for Richmond I'd assume
 
s--k said:
That is a lot of pts for Sacred Heart. I've said before, some games just don't register in my head. I wouldn't want to take SHU for sure. But would I want Mercyhurst? They are off bye. Maybe it's best foot forward week for them.
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My thinking is sacred heart may not reach 21 so how many points do I think mercyhurst can get. Thinking 17-7 worst case but can I forgive myself if I take mercyhurst and it is 0-21 first quarter haha
 
carolinablue said:
My thinking is sacred heart may not reach 21 so how many points do I think mercyhurst can get. Thinking 17-7 worst case but can I forgive myself if I take mercyhurst and it is 0-21 first quarter haha
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We sat through it once with Georgetown.

It's only one game win or lose.

I believe in playing my conscious. I would rather lose on a game that I wanted to play then not take a game I thought about and see it win.
 
s--k said:
We sat through it once with Georgetown.

It's only one game win or lose.

I believe in playing my conscious. I would rather lose on a game that I wanted to play then not take a game I thought about and see it win.
Click to expand...
Yeah I have 20+ plays today like usual so always gotta remind my brain not to focus on 1 out of the bunch
 
Heading to the sports bar to catch the noon kickoffs…gonna see how many of these fcs games I can get them to put on the big screens
 
Just beat the move to 3.5 on Colgate. FD still had 4.5. I like watching the lines and seeing what other books are doing and then catch a better number still hanging out there
 
Griz 24.5 at DK now, damn. Somebody not travel, one of the UNC QBs back?
 
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