College Football Betting: Western Michigan vs Michigan State Lines

ESPN2 will kick-off the first College Football Saturday of the season as the Michigan State Spartans host the Western Michigan Broncos with a 12:00pm EST scheduled start. Online sportsbooks have opened with Michigan State as a 24-point favorite in college football betting odds with a total of 52. Western Michigan is slated to be a top challenger for the Mid American Conference championship after a 5-7 season in college football lines last year. Under head coach Bill Cubit the Broncos have gone to bowls in 3 out of 5 seasons. Cubit is a fine recruiter and has 7 starters back on offense with 6 returning on defense. He will have a new starting QB however with sophomore Alex Carder.

Carder will have all top receivers back to lend support. WMU has struggled as a road underdog the past 2 years with a mark of 2-7 against the college football betting spread and has gone just 3-8 ATS in non conference action since 2007. Last year State clobbered the Broncos 49-14 and got the cash as 14.5-point favorites. The Spartans enter a critical year under 4th year head coach Mark Dantonio as the program stepped back last year with a 6-7 record that ended with an Alamo Bowl loss to Texas Tech.

Dantonio had led the Spartans to a 9-4 record in 2008 and is looking for a similar mark this year. MSU has 7 starters back on offense led by junior QB Kirk Cousins, who threw for 2,680 yards and 19 TD’s last year. The defense regressed as it allowed 26 points per game to waste the improved offense’s output of 30 PPG in 2009. The stop unit has 6 returning starters. Sparty has struggled long term as a home gavorites in college football odds with just 15 payouts in 43 games since 2001.