Game Analysis

Lean – Florida State (-4.5/-5)  37   NC STATE  28

Florida State is a much better team than NC State – even if I take out their opening day win over Alabama and two blowout wins over bad teams in which they outperformed their average rating (outscored Kent State and East Texas A&M 143-13). Using ACC games only still rates Florida State as about 14 points better than an average team, as they’ve been 0.9 yards per play better than average offensively in ACC play (6.0 yppl against teams that would allow 5.1 yppl to an average team) and 0.5 yppl better than average defensively (5.3 yppl allowed to teams that would average 5.8 yppl against an average defense).

NC State has an offense that is nearly as good (6.0 yppl against FBS teams that would allow 5.2 yppl against an average team) but the Wolfpack defense has been 0.5 yppl worse than average (6.8 yppl allowed to teams that would average 6.3 yppl against an average team) and has been worse in 4 games without top LB Sean Brown, who was leading the team in tackles through 5 games with 3.5 tackles for loss. Without Brown NC State has allowed 36 points to Notre Dame, 53 points to Pitt, 36 points to Georgia Tech, and 41 points to Miami while giving up an average of 535 yards at 7.4 yards per play. All of those opponents have a good offense but so does Florida State.

Florida State qualifies as a Best Bet based on the math but the Seminoles can’t seem to win a game on the road even though their underlying metrics in those games are still good enough to win. The Noles outplayed Virginia 515 yards at 6.4 yards per play to 440 yards at 5.2 yppld in an overtime loss in Charlottesville. They outplayed Stanford 444 yards at 5.7 yppl to 293 yards at 4.4 yppl in an inexplicable loss in Palo Alto and they outgained Clemson while averaging 5.3 yppl to the Tigers’ 5.4 yppl in a loss that was determined by a -2 in turnovers.

Normally I wouldn’t let 3 road losses deter me from making a road favorite a Best Bet, especially given that FSU has outplayed their opponents from the line of scrimmage in those 3 losses, but it could be mental at this point with Seminoles now having lost 9 straight games away from home.

I’ll pass on making Florida State a Best Bet or Strong Opinion even though the math favors them by 10.7 points in this game.