THURSDAY 4% BEST BET • 30-14 (+43) RUN • 101-64 (+113) BIG BET RECORD!

THE PLAY: New England Patriots -7.0 (-107)

New England won-and-covered both meetings last season with both of those contests going over the total. Prior to last year's sweep, the Dolphins had won seven of the previous eight meetings in this AFC East matchup. The Patriots had a couple extra days to prep for this one after falling in Chicago last Thursday. That 30-24 defeat snapped a three-game winning streak. New England's last four games have all gone over the total. Miami snapped its six-game losing streak with a 28-25 win over the Jets last week. The Dolphins were coming off their bye week, and first-year head coach Jeff Hafley had to like what he saw from his struggling squad coming out of the break. After averaging 4.75 rushing attempts through the Dolphins' first four games, Miami is letting Malik Willis run a bit more. Willis has generated eight rushing attempts in each of the last two games, averaging 55.5 yards on the ground against the Bengals and Jets with a rushing touchdown in each game. With this game being at 4:25pm ET on Sunday afternoon, it offers a little bit of a unique look on Miami's win over the Jets last week. New York hosts the Raiders at 1pm ET with Las Vegas on a four-game losing streak. The Raiders have gotten crushed in their last four trips to the Eastern Time Zone. If the Jets beat the Raiders, then yeah, Miami can puff its chest out a little bit for that win last week and it gives them a little bit of legitimacy. If the Jets lose to the Raiders, then unfortunately for the Dolphins, that win last week is largely going to be forgotten because New York is going to be widely viewed as a bottom-5 (probably lower) team in the league. We fall on that side of the divide, and while Miami deserves props for breaking its winless streak, it probably came against the worst-coached team in the league. We have this game lined closer to double digits and we are comfortable laying the points with New England on the road. Play New England Patriots

THE PLAY: Washington State +2.5 (-104)

It’s purely accidental that San Diego State got involved with a scoreline last week at Fort Collins that looks pulled from the basketball game between Brian Dutcher's Aztec hoopsters and Ali Farokhmanesh's Colorado State. Rather, that eye-popping 56-49 loss to the Rams was more down to the oddities of this particular CSU edition team that plays games more resembling video football, and not suggesting some return to the Air Coryell roots of the SDSU program back to the glorious 60s and early 70s. Unfortunately for Aztec QB Jayden Denegal, an ankle injury prevented him from gaining some confidence and padding his stats last week against the Rams, instead allowing freshman Stone Saunders to pretend he was Don Horn, Dennis Shaw or Brian Sipe for 60 minutes against CSU’s non-defense and pass for a whopping 369 yards and a couple of TDs. As Denegal has only passed for as many as 200 yards five times the past two seasons, with 256 the high, head coach Sean Lewis has already made the call to stick with Saunders at least for this week as the 3-5 Aztecs are running out of time to secure bowl eligibility. That carrot has already been removed from 1-7 Washington State, but the Cougs really haven’t played that badly in recent weeks, hanging within earshot of possible playoff contenders like Arizona, Oregon State, and Boise State, and actually level with the Pac-12 frontrunner Broncos at 10 apiece into the fourth quarter last week at Pullman before Boise broke loose for three late TDs in a deceiving 31-10 final. After hiding freshman QB Owen Eshelman for the first half of the season, first-year head coach Kirby Moore has turned him loose the past two weeks. Eshelman passed for 480 yards as the Cougs have at least been displaying a sharper edge than when UC Davis transfer Caden Pinnick was glad to dink-and-dunk to his heart’s content without really throwing the ball downfield the first month of the campaign. Wazzu has also been facing some better teams than San Diego State and making a fist of it in recent weeks; against the Aztecs, that sort of effort can possibly get rewarded at Snapdragon. Play Washington State

THE PLAY: Nevada +22.5 (-106)

Aside from a couple of stray and very brief appearances in the top ten during the Jim Mora era a decade-plus ago, UCLA hasn’t enjoyed this sort of rarified air in the rankings in a generation, or since the long-ago Bob Toledo regime, when the Bruins spent more than a month in the top ten before fading in 2001. Along with this new-found respect, however, comes expectation in Westwood, and forced to carry heavy, 3-TD-plus imposts against Mountain West sides like Nevada (indeed, UCLA hasn't had to lay a number above 22 since a 2017 romp past Hawaii). While Bob Chesney will undoubtedly warn his undefeated team about this potential flat spot in front of the November Big Ten stretch drive, that might be a big ask even for a team that has been avoiding defeat (both outright and vs. the spread) into Halloween. Though more than a few Big Ten observers think Chensey’s team might actually be better off with a game-manager at QB like Cal Poly transfer Ty Dieffenbach with OC Dean Kennedy carefully keeping Dieffenbach playing within himself and not mimicking the free-wheeling style of the now-injured Nico Iamaleava, whose big-play capabilities could be compromised by big-play mistakes. Yet with Dieffenbach at the helm (counting the Oregon game, in which he went in the second half), UCLA is scoring under 21 points per game and content to grind out wins with its Wayne Knight-led ground assault and voracious defense that’s forced a whopping 22 turnovers (behind only New Mexico nationally). Like Rocky Balboa in the first Rocky, Nevada would be happy just to last the full 15 rounds and not humiliate itself, and recent efforts (four-straight covers) and some honorable showings vs. Power 4 heavyweights in recent years suggests the Pack might be able to avoid a blowout thanks in part to its very serviceable infantry led by RBs Dominic Kelley and Herschel Turner (combined over 1,000 rushing yards). There’s also the intriguing possibility of ex-Bruin Luke Duncan, who started a game for UCLA last fall at Ohio State and arguably looked better out of the bullpen last week vs, San Jose State, when passing for two TDs, than the injured pair ahead of him (Carter Jones and AJ Bianco) on the Reno depth chart, keeping this scoreline from getting out of hand. Mountain West observers don't expect the Pack to get hurt if Duncan has to give it another go on Saturday vs. his old team in Pasadena. Play Nevada