Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Ball St. +120 over Kent St.

12:00 PM EST. Here's a number that immediately caught our attention. Ball State is a 3½-point road underdog, yet the oddsmakers are offering only +120 on the Cardinals to win outright. That's awfully stingy for a team supposedly more than a field goal inferior on the road. If the oddsmakers truly believed Kent State deserved to be a solid 3½-point favorite, we'd expect a considerably more attractive return on Ball State to win the game. Instead, they're not offering nearly enough, and that discrepancy has our attention.

There isn't much about Kent State that suggests the Golden Flashes should be trusted laying points. They were annihilated 59-3 by Ohio State, producing only 134 yards on 55 plays, and they were also shut out 57-0 by South Carolina. Their lone victory came against Wofford, and even that required some work after Kent State found itself trailing late. Through three games, the Golden Flashes are averaging just 13 points per game, while quarterback Dru DeShields has thrown one touchdown against three interceptions. That's a pretty flimsy résumé for a favorite.

Ball State has taken its lumps too, but there's at least something functional offensively. Even in last week's 51-15 loss to Liberty, the Cardinals rushed for 156 yards on 35 attempts, with TJ Horton producing 79 yards and two touchdowns on only eight carries. Ball State's 41-17 victory over Stony Brook was also considerably more convincing than Kent State's lone victory. Neither defense inspires much confidence, but Ball State appears to have enough offensively to make this a very uncomfortable afternoon for a Kent State team being asked to win a game simply because it's playing at home.

We're not interested in pretending Ball State is something it isn't. This is a matchup between two deeply flawed teams. What interests us is the price the oddsmakers have attached to those flaws. Ball State is being presented as a 3½-point road dog, but they're offering us only +120 to take the Cardinals outright. That's not nearly enough of a premium for what the point spread would normally suggest, and numbers like that deserve our attention. We'll bypass the expensive +3½ and take the bigger return.

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