Take The Points In MACtion Battle
Eastern Michigan vs. Buffalo, 7:30 ET
College football is the only pigskin game we have going after the NFL wrapped up last night and starts again on Thanksgiving. This is like a little appetizer for the bigger platter of football games that are coming on Thursday, Friday, and the weekend. We can take this as an opportunity to wet our beak a bit and get a play in this matchup between Eastern Michigan and Buffalo.
Eastern Michigan has had a strange season. They beat Howard to open the season, then they lost to Minnesota. Both outcomes were pretty expected. I'm a bit surprised they beat Massachusetts, but then they dropped their next two games before winning their next two. That put them at 4-3 and 2-1 in the conference. Three straight losses to some of the better teams in the MAC have them sitting at 2-4 now but still 3rd in MAC-West. Last week they were able to escape with a victory in double overtime over Akron and now they face Buffalo hoping they can get one more win before the end of the year and end at 6-6. Eastern Michigan isn't that good at anything offensively, which probably explains the mediocre record. For instance, their quarterback, Austin Smith, has thrown for 200 yards or more just twice this season. They don't have a 100-yard rusher and only have one game where a receiver has 100+ yards. Buffalo doesn't have that good of an offense either, and their defense is just okay overall. I think Eastern Michigan will move the ball, but I won't say they are going to be much different than what we've seen this season.
BUFFALO, NY - SEPTEMBER 18: A view of a Buffalo Bulls players helmet on the bench during a game against the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers at UB Stadium on September 18, 2021 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images)
Buffalo hasn't had a strange season. They've been bad this year. They started the season by losing four straight games. Sure, losing to Wisconsin is understandable, but they couldn't get anything together for games against Fordham, Liberty, or Louisiana. They allowed 140 points to those three opponents. Since that point, however, the defense has at least played a bit better. Maybe it was just that they needed to see MAC opponents. They opened their MAC schedule with back to back wins and limited their opponents to just 23 points combined in those two games. After splitting their next two games, they have dropped their past three. Still, their defense isn't really to blame for those. Their offense has mustered very little over the past three contests scoring just 33 points over the three games. At that point, you're essentially asking your defense to be perfect.
The weather doesn't look great in this game - cold and rainy. That means it will probably come down to who can run the ball better. I think that is probably Eastern Michigan. They also still have something to play for. Buffalo has nothing left to play for in this. The books know how bad both offenses are as well and have a total of just 35.5 on this game. I think you're going to play with fire if you take the under, but it will probably be a sweaty over as well. I'm going to take the points with Eastern Michigan. I also might sprinkle the moneyline.
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