Jacksonville State vs. Middle Tennessee<\/p>\n
It will be a bittersweet college football Wednesday in Week 10, but I promise we\u2019ll all get through it together. This is the final week of Conference USA games on Wednesdays, as MACtion gets going next week. But we all need to stand up and applaud Conference USA, which made it possible for us to enjoy 49 straight days of football by playing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The passing of the torch to the MAC comes with Jacksonville State vs. Middle Tennessee and FIU vs. Missouri State.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at that Jacksonville State vs. Middle Tennessee game first and then move on to the other game, as that one has an 8 p.m. ET kick on CBS Sports Network and this one is on ESPN2 with a 7:30 p.m. ET kick in Murfreesboro.<\/p>\n
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Odds from Circa Sports as of October 27, 5:00 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits<\/a> and DraftKings Betting Splits<\/a>. See all of our Week 10 College Football Picks and Predictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jacksonville State (-6.5, 54.5) at Middle Tennessee<\/p>\n Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2)<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t seen the Gamecocks in a while, as they last played 14 days ago on Oct. 15 with a 38-25 win over Delaware. It wasn\u2019t even QB Caden Creel\u2019s best effort, as he threw for 116 yards and ran for 57 more. The freshman ran for 161 yards and 132 yards when he entered as the replacement against Southern Miss and then in his first career start against Sam Houston. It was a short week for the freshman against the Blue Hens, but he\u2019s had plenty of extra prep time for this one.<\/p>\n Creel left the game against Delaware with what head coach Charles Kelly said was a tendon injury to his non-throwing arm, so hopefully it won\u2019t impact him at all here because he\u2019s a much more explosive player than Gavin Wimsatt. He played some mop-up time against Murray State before this recent stretch and he\u2019s the Gamecocks\u2019 second-best runner in essentially 3.25 games. He\u2019s averaged 6.3 yards per carry, a great complement to feature back Cam Cook and his 5.9 yards per pop.<\/p>\n Middle Tennessee came off of their bye week and lost to Delaware 31-28. The Blue Raiders only have one win on the season and it was a final-minute comeback against Nevada back in mid-September. They\u2019ve had close calls, losing by two to Missouri State and three to Delaware, but this Jacksonville State team is better than those two.<\/p>\n After a really rocky start, head coach Derek Mason has gotten more out of his defense. In two October games, the Blue Raiders have allowed just 4.85 yards per play. They\u2019re actually outgaining opponents on a per-play basis in C-USA action by 0.18 yards, so maybe there\u2019s a little bit of positive regression taking hold. Veteran QB Nick Vattiato has an 11\/5 TD\/INT ratio and has completed 62% of his passes, while Jekail Middlebrook has 5.8 yards per carry with no help from others in the running back room.<\/p>\n There is a big discrepancy in this game in terms of protecting the QB. Middle Tennessee has allowed 21 sacks in seven games, while Jacksonville State has allowed just nine. The Gamecocks only have one more sack on defense than the Blue Raiders, but they are +7 in sack differential, while MTSU is -6. It should be noted that 10 of Vattiato\u2019s 16 sacks came in the first three games of the season. The Blue Raiders are slowly improving.<\/p>\n These are two awful pass defenses. Jacksonville State is 116th in yards per pass attempt against and they only have three interceptions. Middle Tennessee is 122nd in yards per pass attempt against and only has four interceptions. The weather could be a bit sloppy, but wide receivers and offensive players know where they are going and the defense doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Pick: Over 54.5<\/p>\n Other Wednesday Game<\/p>\n