Pros Taking a Side in Friday’s Middle Tennessee State-Marshall Matchup

We're less than 24 hours away from another college football Saturday feast, but wiseguys aren't fasting until then. They've perused Friday night's three-game menu and picked out a tasty, undervalued appetizer.

According to The Action Network's college football public betting data, Utah State-BYU (9 p.m. ET) and Georgia Tech-Louisville (7 p.m. ET) are attracting much more attention from recreational bettors, but remember, sharps bet for value, not action.

Middle Tennessee State-Marshall (7:30 p.m. ET) clearly isn't the marquee matchup of Friday's slate, but professional bettors have been steadily getting down on this game all week.

In the most lopsided college football game of the night in terms of action, nearly 75% of spread bets are taking home-favorite Marshall. However, despite receiving overwhelming public support, the Thundering Herd (3-1) have fallen from -7.5 to -4.

Why would the oddsmakers drop the spread to give public Marshall backers a better number? They aren't being nice and handing out free points to recreational bettors.

Oddsmakers moved the line because they got hit by an overload of sharp action on road-dog Middle Tennessee State (2-2).

According to Sports Insights’ Bet Signals, a steam move was triggered on Middle Tennessee State +5 at Pinnacle.

This smart-money indicator is notable because Pinnacle is one of the sharpest, market-setting offshore books — meaning it caters to professional bettors.

Middle Tennessee State also enjoys a profitable smart-money discrepancy — the Blue Raiders are only getting 28% of spread bets but 51% of spread dollars.

This indicates big, sharp wagers in their favor, with $5 Average Joe's siding with Marshall.

While sharps are grabbing the points with MTSU, they might also be taking a shot on the Blue Raiders to win straight up (+160), as MTSU fits the highly profitable Bet Labs moneyline system Small Visiting Dogs (+98.01 units, 8.3% ROI since 2005).