College football week 12 Wednesday

Got the week off to a good start last night with the pick of Ohio.  The MACtion action continues tonight with 2 more games.  Here are the game insights for each.

Western Michigan at Northern Illinois (-3):

I actually have Western Michigan rated as the better team here, but due to home field adjustments the line is pretty accurate, but does indicate some value on Western Michigan at current levels.  Northern Illinois is a team that has been getting better each week.  Western is coming off a tough home loss to Bowling Green last week, and while I thought the rain would stay out of the area until the game was over, that proved to be wrong as neither team scored in the 4^th quarter, not that Western Michigan didn’t have a chance inside the 5.  A win for either team keeps them tied with Toledo for first place in the west division, so look for both teams to leave it all on the field.  Western Michigan has the slightly better rated offense, while Northern Illinois has the slightly better rated defense.  While I’m very tempted to pull the trigger on Western Michigan in this game, I’m going to pass, as I’m still uncertain about Northern Illinois and the QB running the show there.  Against Toledo Hare went down, and is out for the year, his replacement is Graham, and he runs the offense very similar to Jordan Lynch, who led NIU’s very potent offense the past couple of years.  Just enjoy this game as it should be a good one. 

Central Michigan (-9.5) at Kent State:

Kent State is one of those bottom teams that I normally pick on.  Last week I was tempted to take them on the road against Ohio, based on the strength of their defense.  Luckily I didn’t, and they lost big.  In fact they were shut out, and the defense didn’t really live up to it’s billing of being good.  That defense will be tested again this week, as CMU comes in with a potent offense, mostly because of the passing game.  CMU is averaging nearly 300 yards per game passing in conference play, which is about 20 – 30 yards more than what Kent State is allowing.  The difference between last week and this weeks game for Kent State is that CMU has a much better defense than Ohio does, so I’m not sure where Kent State is going to get any offensive production from.  Central Michigan has also benefited from a very strong non-conference schedule.  They’ve played Oklahoma State, and Michigan State.  Sure they lost both games, but they kept them close and played both teams tough.  Again, Kent State struggles to score, in their past 5 games they’ve scored 7, 15, 0, 17 and 0.  That doesn’t necessarily breed confidence, especially against a better defense.  I just don’t see Kent State being able to keep up with the CMU offense.  I’m making Central Michigan a pick.

Check back tomorrow for the Thursday and Friday game insights and for potential picks.