College Football Odds, Picks, Prediction for Middle Tennessee vs Western Kentucky

Middle Tennessee will travel north Thursday night to take on Western Kentucky. This will be the first conference game of the season for both of these teams, and it's a matchup that may go a long way toward deciding this year’s CUSA Championship.

Neither team has been able to break out yet this season, but Western Kentucky’s offense has shown flashes in its passing game.

Let’s dive into my preview and best bet for Middle Tennessee vs. Western Kentucky.

Middle Tennessee has had a difficult start to the season offensively. The Blue Raiders struggled to move the ball against both Alabama and Missouri, but both of these teams have top-20 defenses. The Blue Raiders found more success on this side of the ball against both Murray State (72nd-percentile Success Rate) and Colorado State (78th-percentile Success Rate).

Western Kentucky’s defense is more in line with Murray State's and Colorado State's, but I still wouldn’t expect a crazy offensive day from the Blue Raiders. On the season, they rank 100th in Success Rate and 99th in Finishing Drives.

They pass at the 24th-highest rate in the country with the 86th-best Passing Success Rate and the 65th-best EPA.

This hasn't typically been the way to attack WKU’s defense this season, as it's 63rd in Passing Success Rate Allowed. However, the Hilltoppers’ propensity to allow big passing plays defensively may allow Middle Tennessee to have some chances for explosive plays.

The passing defense will likely be an issue for the Blue Raiders in this matchup; they rank 108th in Passing Success Rate Allowed and 120th in Passing PPA Allowed. Mizzou and Alabama both shredded this passing defense, as did Colorado State, which had an 87th-percentile EPA per dropback against the Blue Raiders.

In terms of Finishing Drives, Western Kentucky has had one of the best offenses in the country, ranking sixth thus far this season.

However, this isn’t likely a sustainable scoring rate, as the Hilltoppers are just 76th in Offensive Success Rate. This team passes at the third-highest rate in college football with the 79th-best Passing Success Rate.

While their overall Success Rate wasn’t great against USF, the Hilltoppers did still put up 6.67 yards per play. WKU also didn't get completely stymied against Ohio State and recorded a 41st-percentile Success Rate and 5.51 yards per play mark against Troy (which has a top-50 defense) last week.

I do think that this offense is good enough to take advantage of bad defenses, particularly ones like Middle Tennessee that struggle to defend the pass.

This isn’t a great defense, but I don’t have faith in Middle Tennessee being able to properly attack it. Rushing defense is a weakness for WKU, but that's not a strength of Middle Tennessee’s, so this weakness may not be as pronounced.

As mentioned above, Western Kentucky has had a reliable passing defense. It just need to keep Middle Tennessee from generating explosive plays, which it's been unable to do in the passing game this year (86th in Passing Explosiveness).

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Toggle the dropdowns below to hide or show how Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky match up statistically:

Middle Tennessee Offense vs. Western Kentucky Defense

	Offense	Defense	Edge
Rush Success	115	122
Line Yards	108	132
Pass Success	84	90
Havoc	101	97
Finishing Drives	98	91
Quality Drives	97	90

Western Kentucky Offense vs. Middle Tennessee Defense

	Offense	Defense	Edge
Rush Success	65	101
Line Yards	81	100
Pass Success	79	120
Havoc	80	105
Finishing Drives	6	130
Quality Drives	101	92

Pace of Play / Other

PFF Tackling	74	106
PFF Coverage	126	47
Special Teams SP+	114	23
Middle 8	126	129
Seconds per Play	26.0 (50)	26.0 (52)
Rush Rate	45.9% (108)	36.0% (130)

I believe that Western Kentucky is the better team here by a decent margin. The Hilltoppers will be playing at home in a primetime Thursday night game. I expect that the crowd will show up and make this a tough environment to play in, just furthering WKU’s advantage.

With the current number at 5.5, I like taking the Hilltoppers to cover here on the backs of their offense.

I’d take this number up to -6.5 but not any higher than that.