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The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers take on the New Mexico State Aggies in Las Cruces, N.M., on Thursday, Oct. 1. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.
New Mexico State is favored by -2.5 points on the spread with a moneyline of -134. Western Kentucky, meanwhile, enters as a +2.5 underdog and is +112 on the moneyline to pull off the upset. The over/under sits at 56.5 total points.
Here's my Western Kentucky vs. New Mexico State predictionand college football pick for Thursday, October 1.
Western Kentucky vs. New Mexico State Pick: New Mexico State Team Total Under 29.5
My New Mexico State vs. Western Kentucky best bet is on the Aggies total points. Find the best line available on our live NCAAF odds page and download the Action Network app for more picks and analysis.
Western Kentucky vs New Mexico State Spread: New Mexico State -2.5, Western Kentucky +2.5
Western Kentucky vs New Mexico State Over/Under: 55.5 Total Points
Western Kentucky vs New Mexico State Moneyline: Western Kentucky ML +110, New Mexico State ML -130
Credit to Western Kentucky athletics for successfully funding the department for the year with back-to-back games at Georgia and Indiana . All it cost WKU was an 0-2 record with a combined -82 point margin.
All things considered, it could have been way worse, but it also may have buried the brief snapshot we got of a concerning team in Reno the weekend before.
The Hilltoppers were walloped by Nevada in a 49-14 game, increasing their scoring margin against FBS teams to -117, worst in the country.
The issue with WKU is multi-fold.
First, its offensive line has struggled, and its two most premium positions (center, left tackle) have seen a couple of different faces in the lineup.
Quarterback Rodney Tisdale Jr. was banged up against Georgia and missed the game against Indiana, but looked totally lost against Nevada. His No. 1 receiver, K.D. Hutchinson, hasn't played this year, but Tisdale just hasn't thrived in the new system.
Offensive coordinator Bodie Reeder spent last season leading Middle Tennessee to the 95th-ranked offense in the country. He was rather uninspiring, and MTSU actually cut him loose.
Head coach Tyson Helton's track record of hiring OCs has been impeccable (Rick Bowie, Drew Hollingshead, Ben Arbuckle and Zach Kittley all got poached for bigger jobs), so in the preseason, I wanted to give Helton the benefit of the doubt.
But, man, this has been bad.
WKU ranks 130th in Net Success Rate (-13.5%), 130th in net Available Yards (-30.6%) and dead last in yards per play margin (-4.46!), and that includes last week's 52-7 rout of Mercyhurst.
I'll wait to make a firm call on the defense since this team has been so obviously outmatched twice, but it's hard to ignore surrendering 323 rushing yards to Nevada.
Things are dire in Bowling Green South.
The initial reaction to New Mexico State after it gave Florida State all it could handle in Week 0 was better than expected. But is it, really?
New Mexico State is getting a nice market bump for one big reason: its Week 0 fight with Florida State was nationally televised, and no one watched its abysmal performance at Hawaii — a 29-19 loss that kicked off at midnight ET, where the offense mustered only 13 points.
In that game, NMSU gained 50% of available yards and generated a grand total of two explosive plays. Luckily for the Aggies, an 84-yard fumble return touchdown flipped the script on what should have been a 36-13 final score.
David Yost's Air Raid would be a lot more fun here if NMSU rostered a quarterback who was better than bottom-10 in the country annually.
Through four games, Trey Hedden already has 10 turnover-worthy throws and five interceptions. He doesn't have many weapons to work with, and Yost asks a lot of Hedden, as NMSU runs a new play every 23.6 seconds (12th-fastest) and dials up a pass on 60% of its plays (8th).
The Aggie defense doesn't have the horses to make as many substitutions as it likes and, handily out-manned, it has given up way too many explosive passes and hasn't created enough turnovers or sacks.
Perhaps not a worst-case scenario — this certainly isn't Conference USA 's most disastrous defense — but this is a massive step backward from last year.
Fortunately, flooding rains should be moved out of Las Cruces in time for Thursday's kickoff. Bettors were confident on that (and not confident in either defense), betting the total way up from 52.5 at open all the way to 57.5.
The move makes sense, as both offenses run with tempo, and both defenses have not given us any reason to have confidence thus far.
In four of its first five games this year, WKU played on the road. It traveled to Reno, Athens and Bloomington, returned home for a quick reprieve against Mercyhurst, and now it's back to the road for Las Cruces without a bye.
All that travel adds up.
We saw a huge adjustment to the total without a huge adjustment to the spread. As a result, New Mexico State's team total had no choice but to rise, too. And it rose too far.
Though both defenses have serious issues, and though both teams run a hot tempo, all of this bullish movement on points neglects to consider one thing: Is either offense any good?
New Mexico State is a pass-heavy team, and WKU has done marginally better (even if just ever-so-slightly so) against the pass. Hedden is the worst FBS QB this defense has faced by a comfortable margin.
The other options have been a pretty-good Carter Jones, Heisman contender Gunner Stockton, and the potent gunslinger Josh Hoover . This is where we see some defensive improvement from WKU, even with all of the lack of rest factored in.
New Mexico State's offense isn't a unit threatening 30 on an FBS defense this season, with no run game and relying solely on Hedden. I'm attacking the market inefficiency after a major boost to the point total with no check on the Aggie offense.
Pick: New Mexico State Team Total Under 29.5 (Play to 28)
