Welcome back, college sports fans, to episode 716 which is about a single game tonight. But first, let’s review yesterday’s game. Delaware (3-4/120) could do little wrong as they trounced Missouri St (2-5/141) 61-38. Nothing like a 99-point game to start the week! The GCR calculated DEL to win and cover which puts us at 1-0 straight up (SU) and 1-0 against the spread (ATS). Mid Tenn (4-3/97) took out favored FIU (3-4/98) 26-23 which we did not project, but we did have MTSU to cover, so 1-1 SU and 2-0 ATS. South Alabama (4-3/81) failed to win or cover against Marshall (4-3/102) 20-13 which brought our opening day to 1-2 SU and 2-1 ATS.
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Tonight, we head to the westernmost teams in Conference USA when the New Mexico St Aggies (2-4/133) heads east to the Sam Houston Bearkats (1-5/157). While clearly not powerhouses, this game has some promise, not to mention it’s the only football game on TV tonight (although the WNBA finals are tied up and playing game 3 tonight). When the Aggies are driving, they bring an Offensive Efficiency Rating (OER) of 92 (160th out of 266) which means they score just 9.2 points for every 10.0 points their opponents normally allow. They will face a SHOU Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) of 107 (117th) which means they give up 10.0 points for every 10.7 their opponents normally score. Seems like a small advantage to Sam Houston. On the flip side, the Bearkats OER of 77 (212th), which is pretty bad, will face an Aggie DER of 97 (157th). A bigger advantage for NMST. The game should be close. Vegas has NMST-2.5, and the GCR agrees, but just barely. Our algorithms (current and test) agree at NMST-3.5, so we are projecting New Mexico St to win and cover. The game is at 8:00 Eastern on ESPN2.
| Time (ET) | Games of October 21st | Conference | Vegas | GCR | Cover | TV |
| 8:00 | New Mexico St (2-4/133) at Sam Houston (1-5/157) | USA | NMST -2.5 | NMST | NMST | ESPN2 |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for three more games. Until then, thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing with others, JoJo and G.
