Ball State At Toledo Rockets!
Thursday, November 16th 2006 (Bob Acton)

The Ball State Cardinals will leave Muncie, Indiana for the third straight week as they face the Toledo Rockets in a Tuesday Night ESPN College football game. SuperBook.com is the largest online sportbook in the world and they have this line presently at Toledo-5, which is up two points from the Sunday night opening line of -3.

The Cardinals impressed a United States television audience over a week ago when they went into Ann Arbor, Michigan and gave the overwhelming Wolverines a major tussle. The final score was 34-26 and this came on the heels of a 20-17 road win at Miami of Ohio.

When analyzing Ball State, the first thing that jumps out at you from the statistical page, is the Cardinals passing game. They have over 2,500 yards in passing and two talented quarterbacks in Nate Davis and Joey Lynch and an excellent 24-10 touchdown to turnover ratio.

Toledo has struggled in the passing game after losing the now starting Tampa Bay QB Bruce Gradkowski. Both Opelt and Cochran have been mediocre, but the Rockets are tough at home and especially on weeknight ESPN games. Last week they passes for a pathetic 49 yards on 8-21 throwing, but smashed their way to 238 yards of rushing while holding Huskies sensational Garrett Wolfe to 54 yards on 16 carries.

This rushing attack of Toledo’s is bad news for the Cardinals who allowed the Wolverines to rack up an incredible 352 yards rushing and it must be noted that Ball State has been outscored 144-40 in the last four trips to Toledo.

Toledo has been a horrible bet as a favorite this year, losing every game and are just 2-7 in their favorite’s role the last 9 games. Ball State on the other hand performs well as a dog covering 12 of their past 17 games.

SuperBook.com has all the latest line moves and the over/under sits at 53 ½ while the weather will be a crisp 37 degrees.

Bob Acton

Sports Betting