My Tuesday Strong Opinion lost, but I'm 36-25-1 (59%) on my College Football Best Bets at drbobsports.com and I have a Best Bet for you today. I also have Free Analysis on most College and NFL games each week (College on Thursday after 3 pm and NFL on Friday after 10 am).
Wednesday, November 17
TOLEDO (-10) 33 Bowling Green 12
Toledo is coming off a horrible 30-65 loss at Northern Illinois, but the Rockets have a long history of bouncing back at home, where they are 18-3 ATS after a loss - including 4-0 ATS under coach Dave Clawson. Toledo also applies to a 108-53-3 ATS humiliation bounce-back situation and a 99-30-2 ATS statistical match up indicator. In addition to the favorable technical analysis, my math model gives the Rockets a 60.7% chance of covering at -10 points based solely on the math. Toledo is a pretty decent team by MAC standards, averaging 5.3 yards per play and allowing 5.6 yppl while rating at 0.3 yppl worse than average offensively and 0.2 yppl worse than average defensively after accounting for strength of schedule. A team that is just a bit below average from the line of scrimmage should have no trouble beating Bowling Green by a comfortable margin. The Falcons' offense is horrible, as that unit is among the worst running teams in the nation (84 yards per game at 3.1 yards per rushing play, against teams that would allow 5.0 yprp to an average team) while quarterback Matt Schilz has averaged just 4.9 yards per pass play despite facing teams that would combine to allow 6.8 yppp to an average team. Bowling Green is 1.7 yards per play worse than average offensively, giving Toledo a huge 1.5 yppl advantage when the Falcons have the ball.
Bowling Green is terrible defensively too, allowing 6.0 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.2 yppl against an average team, so Toledo's offense (0.3 yppl worse than average) has a 0.5 yppl advantage. Toledo's starting quarterback Austin Dantin is out, but backup Terrance Owens has performed better so far and his 7 touchdown passes to just 1 interception (on 79 pass attempts) is better than Dantin's 7 TD's and 8 picks. In addition to being much better from the line of scrimmage Toledo is less likely to turn the ball over and they're only slightly worse in special teams. My math model projects a 424 total yards to 258 total yards advantage for Toledo in this game and that should be more than enough to win by double-digits on a field where they generally do very well when motivated by a loss. Toledo is a 3-Star Best Bet at -11 or less and a 2-Star Best Bet at more than -11.
I will have free analysis on most College and NFL games this weekend (posted at 3 pm Pacific on Thursday) in the Free Analysis section of my website.