The Bowling Green Falcons are finding out the hard way what life is like without Dino Babers. Bowling Green has gone from having the best offense in the MAC to the second-worst and the Falcons defense has given up more points than any team in the country. The Falcons have looked better in recent weeks though and have shown signs of life. In an early Week 10 college football match-up they will travel to DeKalb to face the Northern Illinois Huskies.
Kickoff for this Week 10 game is set for Tuesday, November 1, 2016, at 8 p.m. ET at Brigham Field at Huskie Stadium. This game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Bowling Green +16
Northern Illinois -16
Odds Analysis
Non-conference games weren’t kind to Northern Illinois this season as the Huskies went both 0-4 SU and 0-4 ATS, including two losses as a touchdown or more favorite. However, since MAC play has started the Huskies have fared much better. Northern Illinois is 2-2 SU and 3-1 ATS in conference play and has kept its postseason hopes alive.
Bowling Green has been one of the worst teams in the country by any aspect. The Falcons are the only team in the nation to have allowed 77 points in a game twice this season, and are a paltry 2-6 ATS. Despite that, they were a one-point favorite against Miami (OH) last week but lived up to their ATS mark and ended up losing by double digits.
Key Stat
The Falcons are allowing 45.1 PPG this season, the highest in the country and you can’t point out just one aspect the defense has been bad at. Bowling Green is allowing 5.02 yards per carry and 8.85 yards per pass this season, both awful numbers, but the biggest sign of how bad this defense is in opponents’ third-down conversion percentage. Falcons’ opponents are converting on 45.6 percent of their third-down attempts and the inability to get off the field has killed the defense.
This defense also has been totally unable to stop teams in the red zone. Opponents have entered Bowling Green’s red zone 33 times this season and 30 of those times they have come away with points. To add more pain to this stat, most of those scores have been touchdowns.
Matchup to Watch
Bowling Green’s offense hasn’t done the defense any favors with how turnover prone they have been. The Falcons have thrown 20 interceptions on the season and QB James Morgan has thrown an interception in every game he has started this season. The offense has steadied itself under him in recent weeks and looked better, but it is still turning the ball over too much.
Morgan might be able to move the ball on a Huskies’ pass defense that has been very porous thus far. Northern Illinois is ranked 104th in pass defense according to S&P+ stats and has allowed almost 8 yards per pass attempt.
Free ATS Pick
Make no mistake, Bowling Green is bad, very bad. However, this team has gotten a little better with each week and three of their last four losses have all been by 7 points or less. The Falcons have had to undergo a lot of changes after Babers left and took a lot of his coaching staff with him. They are slowly improving, but still need a lot of work.
These teams were both expected to be better than they have been to this point, but Northern Illinois played what turned out to be three solid teams in Wyoming, South Florida, and San Diego State in non-conference play and Bowling Green’s new coaching staff had a lot of work to do. The Falcons have improved these last few weeks though and while it won’t be enough to get the win, they should cover the spread.
College Football Odds: Huskies 31, Falcons 23
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