The Gold Sheet

THE PLAY: Saint Marys CA -5.0 (-110)

Former Youngstown State head coach Jerrod Calhoun is doing a very nice job in his first season at Utah State, but Sunday's trip to Saint Mary's represents a strong jump in class. Gaels' head coach Randy Bennett is in his 24th season in Moraga, and Saint Mary's is playing with ruthless efficiency like they always do. The Gaels enter Sunday top-50 in both offensive and defensive efficiency while playing at a bottom-10 pace. Their two losses this season to Arizona State and Boise State have come by a combined six points. Utah State is coming off its first loss of the season against UC-San Diego on Tuesday. Like we said, Coach Calhoun is doing a great job in his first season, and from an analytics perspective, we really can't knock anything that the Aggies are doing. We just simply feel that Saint Marys' style of play is a different animal than what Utah State is used to seeing. The Gaels are top-20 in KenPom's height metric, and they are the best rebounding team in the country. Over the last calendar year, Gonzaga is the only team to beat the Gaels at home. Look for that streak to continue past Sunday. 

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.