Game Analysis

1-Star Best Bet – *WESTERN MICHIGAN (-4.5)  28   Central Michigan  16

I backed Western Michigan in their wins over UMass and Ball State but I passed on them last week in which I thought was a bad matchup against Miami-Ohio (they lost 17-26 as a 2.5-point underdog). I expect the underrated Broncos to bounce-back against a Central Michigan team that is missing a key piece of their offense.

Central Michigan plays two quarterbacks – Joe Labas (their passing QB) and Angel Flores (their running QB). Labas completed a high percentage of mostly short passes but has run for just 72 yards on 17 runs in the Chippewas’ 7 games against FBS opponents. Flores, meanwhile, leads CMU in rushing and has picked up 498 yards on the ground against FBS teams on 92 runs. Central Michigan has decent running backs (4.9 yprp in FBS games), but they aren’t quite as effective in the read-option without the threat of Flores keeping the ball. Without Flores, I expect the Chipps to throw the ball more, which plays into the strength of a Western Michigan defense that has given up just 4.8 yards per pass play this season (to quarterbacks that would average 6.0 yppp against an average defense). The Broncos’ defense is 0.5 yards per play better than average overall and they’ve held their 4 MAC opponents and Rhode Island (their offense is only 0.3 yppl worse than average FBS offense) to an average of just 11.2 points (13.2 ppg allowed to worse than average offensive teams if you want to include Michigan State).

Western Michigan’s offense is not good but they’re better than their season numbers, as Broc Lowry has been much better than opening game starter Brady Jones was. The Broncos are still 0.8 yppl worse than average with Lowry behind center but Central Michigan’s defense is 0.7 yppl worse than average and WMU should enjoy good field position for much of the game given how good their defense is and their significant advantage in special teams in this game. Central Michigan is -3.0 in net kickoff yard line and -5.7 in net punt average while Western Michigan is +3.6 in net KO yard line and +1.0 in net punting.

Western Michigan has averaged 35 points against the 4 bad defensive teams they’ve faced (North Texas, Rhode Island, UMass, and Ball State), who collectively are just 0.1 yppl worse than Central Michigan’s defense.

Western Michigan is a 1-Star Best Bet at -5.5 or less (Strong Opinion at -6).