Buffalo is a 3-point College Football Betting Favorite vs. Ball State

The Buffalo Bulls are 3-point college football betting favorites vs. the Ball State Cardinals in a Friday night matchup between two MAC teams.

Both of these teams have been awful both straight up and against the spread. It’s going to take every bit of my football handicapping acumen in order to pick the winner against the spread (or maybe even finding a wager!) in this game. The Bulls are 2 and 7 both straight up and ATS and the Cardinals are 3 and 7 both straight up and ATS.

Will the home team Bulls rule on Friday night? Or, will the road team Cardinals prove best?

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Buffalo Bulls at Ball State Cardinals

Where: University of Buffalo Stadium, Buffalo, New York

When: Nov. 12th, 2010 at 6:00 pm EST

TV: ESPNU

NCAAF Betting Lines

Ball State Cardinals +3 -110 O 46 ½ -110

Buffalo Bulls -3 -110 U 46 ½ -110

The sports betting trends make it difficult to find which team in this game is the better football betting pick.

• The Ball State Cardinals are 25 and 9 ATS in their last 34 road games.
• The Ball State Cardinals are 1 and 4 ATS in their last 5 games overall.
• The Buffalo Bulls are 1 and 5 ATS in their last 6 games following a straight up loss.
• The Buffalo Bulls are 1 and 6 ATS in their last 7 games at home.

When two teams are as close to awfulness as these two, there is only one thing to do and that’s to take a look at the total. Although I didn’t list them, most of the trends for this game point to the score going over the total.

But the total seems awfully high to me for two such bad teams. Usually, in order for a game to go over the total both or one of the teams has to have a good enough offense to blowout the other team. Two bad teams rarely can score enough points to reach a total above 45 points.

Is that the case in this game? The Ball State Cardinals average 22 points per game. In 3 out of their last 4 games, they’ve reached at least 24 points. The Cardinals put up 38 in a 38 to 41 loss to Eastern Michigan as -15 point favorites. They put up 24 in a 24 to 31 loss to Toledo as 11 ½ point dogs. They racked up 37 points in a 37 to 30 victory over Akron as 13 ½ point NCAAF football betting favorites.

Points have been hard to come by for Buffalo’s offense. The Bulls have scored 20 or more points only 3 times this season. They beat Rhode Island, a sub-division team, 31 to 0 in Week 1. They lost to Connecticut 21 to 45 as 20 ½ point dogs and then they beat Bowling Green as 2 ½ point college football betting favorites 28 to 26.

So, there is some hope that these two teams will go over the total, but I’m not sure that it will. So, what do I do? I actually go back to the against the spread line. I’m not sure why Buffalo is favored in this game, but they shouldn’t be.

The Bulls haven’t shown enough guts to be favored in my opinion. Their defense has been okay lately but their offense has been horrible. I believe that Ball State is probably the better team as they were favored to beat Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan and lost to Toledo on the road by only 7 points. The Cardinals also are coming off of a 7-point victory over Akron while the Bulls have lost 4 straight games.

I’m actually going to take the points and hope that Ball State’s offense is just too much for the Bulls’ defense. My NCAAF football betting pick is on the Ball State Cardinals at +3 odds in this game.

NCAAF Betting Pick: Ball State Cardinals +3 -110

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