Game – Arkie st at ULL, starts approx 5:00 Pacific
Updated consensus Lines – Ark St now -3 everywhere, team totals lines Arkie St 30 or 30.5, and ULL 27 or 27.5
Pick – Arkie St -3 for 3.5 units
Added team totals picks
Arkie State Over 30 points for 1.5 units (pass at >30)
ULL Under 27.5 points for 2 units or Under 27 for one unit, pass at < 27
Support for picks on Arkie St and against ULL
Sun Belt football returns to ESPN tonight and gives us a good match-up tonight, as the Red Wolves from Arkansas State travel to Cajun Field to take on ULL (Louisiana Lafayette). Both of these teams are unbeaten in Sun Belt play and are coming off impressive road wins (but over crappy teams). This was once a home dominated series, with the home team 9-1 ATS from 2002 thru 2011, but the road team has won convincingly the last two years, including a 50-27 blowout “upset” win by Arlie State at ULL in 2012. The Red Wolves are fueled by a solid running game, averaging 216 yrpg and averaging 4.3 ypc, led by Michael Gordon, who is averaging 9.4 yards per carry, and will likely be a MAJOR problem tonight for the Ragin’ Cajuns, who are surrendering 170 rushing yards per game and > 5 ypc, as well as 290 yppg, with a bad YPT of 11.9.
The ULL Cajuns offense is fueled by 3Y QB Terrence Broadway, one of the better dual threat quarterbacks in the Sun Belt, who played his best game of the season (with 338 all-purpose yards) in LW’s win at North Texas, passing for 225 yards on 14-21 and rushing for 113 yards on 19 carries. We believe both of these offenses can move the chains and score, but in our opinion a clear advantage defensively goes to the visitors, who allow just 120 yrpg and just 3.4 ypc, and in their current four game winning streak are giving up just 13 ppg.
And our T&T file (trends and tendencies) also solidly favors the Red Wolves in this spot as they are 9-2 in their last 11 reg season games, including 7-1 ATS in their last eight games, and have been a great play against Sun Belt foes over the past three years, evidenced by their 13-3 ATS 3 year mark in conference games. In stark contrast, ULL not only is just 1-9 ATS in its last 10 lined regular season games (1-4 TY and 0-5 L5 LY) but also 1-6 ATS in their last seven homes games vs. teams with a winning (W-L) record, like 4-2 Arkie State. The Cajuns typically have done a decent job of feasting on the second tier Sun Belt teams, especially when playing as DD home faves, but don’t perform as well when good teams come visiting. And TY the Cajuns already have lost badly (20-48) at home to middle rung La Tech (as 16 point faves, no less), and just two weeks ago at home barely squeaked by a weak Ga State team (34-31, as 17 point faves), a team which Arkie State blew out a week later on the road, 52-10 .
So based on the above support, we’ll take Arkie State and lay the 3 points, and also recommend playing one or both team totals, if you have the “right” lines for doing so (see pick section above).