Recent Play Details

3% Take Central Michigan (#139)

It’s a clear ‘flat spot’ game for the Fighting Irish; coming off a huge win at NC State with a showdown against Ohio State on deck for next week.  Marcus Freeman’s team faced a spot like this last year, in Week 2 after facing the Buckeyes on opening day.  The Irish lost to Marshall in outright fashion as three TD favorites right here in South Bend.  Later in the season, off a big, physical win over BYU, the Irish returned home to face lowly Stanford.  Stanford, too, won in outright fashion as 16.5 point underdogs.  Clearly, Freeman’s teams have been vulnerable to spots like this one.

On the other side of the equation, Central Michigan has been a consistently feisty underdog in the Jim McElwain era, with a winning ATS mark as an underdog in each of his first four years in Mt Pleasant.  My numbers show the Chippewas as 13-5 ATS catching points even after their opening day loss to Michigan State.  They stepped up in class at Penn State last year, losing by 19 as 28 point favorites. They only lost by 28 at LSU in a similar spot in 2021.  A 28 point loss here serves our purposes just fine, and frankly, I would not be shocked at all to see a MUCH closer game than the pointspread would indicate.  Live dog here!  Take Central Michigan.

Line Parameter: 3% at +32.5 or higher, 2% at +32 or lower