The Gold Sheet

THE PLAY: Wisc Green Bay +25.0 (-110)

This has been a disastrous start to Green Bay's season for first-year head coach Doug Gottlieb, but we have our doubts about Drake's ability to win this game by 25+ points. We're operating under the assumption that the country's leading scorer, Anthony Roy, will miss this game. Roy suffered an ankle injury in Green Bay's loss to UC-Santa Barbara and missed Wednesday's contest with Michigan Tech. Coach Gottlieb had to answer the music after that loss to Division-II Michigan Tech, but we like the fact that this is a short-turnaround situation for the Phoenix. Don't sit around and let it linger, get right back out on the court. Drake is still a perfect 10-0 after the Bulldogs earned a neutral site win over Kansas State on Tuesday. Two of Drake's wins have come against non-Division I teams. In the other eight, the Bulldogs' largest margin of victory has been 15 points (and that was back on November 10). Green Bay is certainly in rough shape at the moment, but asking Drake to cover a 25-point spread is a tall task. The Bulldogs' offense plays at a bottom-5 pace, and Drake is bottom-15 in turnover rate. That's not the kind of team you want to lay a 25-point spread with.  

THE PLAY: Total Under 48.0 (-110)

The Lions' injury situation just keeps getting worse every week. Running back David Montgomery tore his MCL in last week's loss to the Bills and will miss the rest of the season. It is certainly not in Dan Campbell's nature, but Detroit's best path for success in this matchup is to get conservative and hold the ball. His defense just gave up 48 points, 559 total yards and 28 first downs last week to Buffalo. You're now facing a Bears' offense that has scored an average of 14.8 points per game since late-October. Keep it simple, Dan. After the loss to the Bills, Jared Goff said that they probably abandoned the running game too early. Chicago went 1-for-12 on third down and 1-for-3 on fourth down in last week's loss to the Vikings. When these teams met on Thanksgiving, the total was 48. That game was played indoors on the fast track of Ford Field, and that was back when it still looked like the Bears had some life on offense. Fast-forward a month, and we're now playing this game outdoors in Chicago in late-December, the Lions are missing their starting running back and the Bears' offense is completely broken. Why is this total the same as last month's total? The under is 5-2 in the last seven meetings on this NFC North clash.

THE PLAY: Total Under 54.0 (-110)

Both teams are coming off high-scoring affairs in their respective conference championship games, and we believe that is giving us some value on the under in this contest. On the surface, SMU's season-long rushing numbers look good, but running back Brashard Smith did a lot of his damage in September against the likes of Florida State, TCU and Houston Christian. Since then? 4.0 yards per carry against Louisville; 3.3 yards per carry against Virginia; 4.3 yards per carry against Cal. Take away a 71-yard run against Pitt and he had 4.1 yards per carry against the Panthers. On the Penn State side, how much is a back-up QB worth to the spread? For almost any other team in the country, you'd laugh at that question. For the Nittany Lions, it's a legitimate question. Starting QB Drew Allar announced that he will return to Happy Valley next season, and back-up Beau Pribula has left the team to pursue other opportunities. Pribula saw a lot of playing time this season, and he's been involved in designed packages in nearly every game. Pribula was not your typical mop-up duty quarterback, and his absence does take a page out of Andy Kotelnicki's playbook. The total between Penn State and Oregon closed at 51 points in a dome with perfect conditions two weeks ago. Are we sure this total should be a field goal higher than that? This total is on pace to be the highest in a Penn State game since hosting Kent State in Week 4. Given what's at stake in this contest, we can't say that we're on board with that.