Game Analysis

Note: The line moved up to -25 but Oregon is still a 2-Star Best Bet at -25 or less (1-Star to -27).

2-Star Best Bet – **OREGON (-23.5 -115)  40   Minnesota  6

Minnesota is just 1-7 ATS against FBS opponents this season and the Gophers will be at the mercy of the Ducks in this game. However, Dan Lanning’s Oregon team usually isn’t merciful against lesser teams, as they are 18-8-1 ATS laying 17 points or more in Lanning’s tenure.

I realize that Oregon may be without 3 of their top pass-catchers again this week, as leading receiver Dakorien Moore and TE Kenyon Sadiq both missed last week’s game while Gary Bryant Jr. was injured early in that game. However, wide receivers Malik Benson and Jeremiah McClellan have combined to average 9.4 yards per target this season, which isn’t too much worse than the 10.4 YPT of Moore and Bryant, and #2 TE Jamari Johnson has averaged 10.6 yards on his 16 targets, which is better than Sadiq’s 10.0 YPT average. I still docked Oregon 0.8 yards per pass play, which worked out to 2.1 points in my model, as I’ll assume that all 3 will miss this game (although 1 or 2 could play).

Dante Moore would still be projected to average 6.7 yards per pass play against a better than average Minnesota pass defense – even without those 3 key receivers – and I’m expecting that they lean more on the run game, which should make the offense even better. Oregon has averaged 248 rushing yards per game at 7.0 yards per rushing play even with lead back Noah Whittingham (8.1 ypr) having missed 2.5 games earlier in the season. Minnesota has not been able to defend the run well this season – rating at 0.4 yprp worse than average against the run – and the Gophers are 0.5 yprp worse defending the run than the average rating of the defenses that Oregon has faced and averaged 7.0 yprp against. It’s very likely that the Ducks average more than 7 yprp in this game and they’d be likely to keep scoring in garbage time by simply running the football.

The problem with Minnesota this season is a horrible offense that’s averaged only 4.8 yards per play against FBS opponents that would combine to allow 5.7 yppl to an average offense. The Gophers have only faced two good defensive teams this season (Ohio State and Iowa) and they managed just 3 points in each of those games and could be held to one score by an elite Oregon defense that has been 1.6 yppl better than average with their starters in the game, which rates a bit better than the average rating of Ohio State’s and Iowa’s defensive units. Oregon has faced 3 teams with offensive units as bad a Minnesota’s offense (Oklahoma State, Oregon State, and Wisconsin) and the Ducks held those teams to 3 points, 7 points, and 7 points. The math model would project just 4.2 points for the Gophers if Oregon’s starters played the entire game.

The Ducks have pulled defensive starters in 4 games and were up by an average margin of 40.8 points when they pulled their starters – so I don’t see garbage time being too much of an issue with Oregon favored by less than 28 points here. I did factor some garbage time in but the math still favors the Ducks by 34 points (even if all 3 receivers miss the game).

Oregon is a 2-Star Best Bet at -25 points or less and 1-Star up to -27 points.