Ball State vs Western Illinois 9/2/21 College Football Picks, Odds, Predictions

The Ball State Cardinals face the Western Illinois Leathernecks in week 1 2021 college football action from Scheumann Stadium on Thursday.

The Western Illinois Leathernecks will hope to make some noise and take a step forward after a frustrating 2020 season that saw WIU go 1-5 before opting out of the season due to a lack of available players amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. Connor Sampson is back after leading the Leathernecks under center, throwing for 1,744 yards, 8 touchdowns and 6 interceptions while Ludovick Choquette and Iosefa Puaauli each return in the backfield after rushing for over 100 yards last year. All of Sampson’s top targets are back in Dallas Daniels, Dennis Houston and Tony Tate with each logging 350+ receiving yards last season. As a team, Western Illinois averaged 20 PPG while allowing 32.7 PPG last season.

The Ball State Cardinals will look to build on their first successful season under Mike Neu, finishing the year at 7-1 while also ranked in the top-25 at season’s end culminating in a 34-13 win over San Jose State in the Arizona Bowl. Drew Plitt returns as Ball State’s starting quarterback, throwing for 2,164 yards, 17 touchdowns and 6 interceptions as the head of one of the most dynamic offenses in the MAC. Tye Evans and Will Jones will be tasked with boasting the 1-2 punch in the backfield for Ball State, combining for over 600 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns last season. Justin Hall is also back after finishing first team all-conference at receiver with 49 receptions for 665 yards and 4 TDs last season while Yo’Heinz Tyler is also back after leading the Cardinals with 8 touchdown receptions. Defensively, the Cardinals need to be better up front and create a bit of a push, but the linebacking group more than makes up for it with Brandon Martin leading the way after logging a team-high 90 tackles last season while Anthony Ekpe flanks him after putting up five sacks and seven TFLs last season. The secondary is in good shape as well, but Antonio Phillips is gone, leaving Bryce Cosby to lead the charge after recording 62 tackles and a pair of interceptions last season. As a team, Ball State averaged 34.2 PPG while allowing 25.8 PPG last season.

The under is 8-0 in Western Illinois’ last 8 games and 8-0 in their last 8 road games. Ball State is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 week 1 matchups.

I get that it’s hard to just jump in and lay a boatload of points with a team like Ball State with nothing to really go off of, but the bottom line here is that Ball State is the better team returning two of the conference’s best players in Plitt and Hall and Ball State, if the Cardinals stay healthy, are the team I have winning the MAC this season. I think Ball State is more than capable of winning this one by at least four scores, so I’ll lay the points with the Cardinals here.