November 23 MACtion College Football Parlay Picks

Week 13 is the last full one of the 2021 college football season and it begins Tuesday with two games from the Mid-American Conference. Let’s took a look and pick each on the College Football NCAAF odds.

MACtion College Football Parlay Picks for Week 13

Buffalo at Ball State (-6.5)

A 7 p.m. ET kickoff available to stream on ESPN+. Buffalo (4-7) plays its finale as the only chance the Bulls had of reaching a bowl was winning last week against Northern Illinois and then this game at Ball State, but Buffalo lost 33-27 in OT at NIU.

The Bulls got the ball first in overtime and drove all the way down to the 1-yard line. Alas, the Bulls fumbled the ball into the endzone and the Huskies recovered. NIU scored on the first play of its first possession to earn the walk-off win. Redshirt sophomore QB Matt Myers completed 15-of-22 passes for 157 yards and a touchdown in his first start of the season. However, his botched handoff to Dylan McDuffie led to the fumble in OT.

McDuffie rushed 29 times for 125 yards and a touchdown. McDuffie has been a revelation for new coach Maurice Linguist since filling in for an injured Kevin Marks and outright taking the starting job from him with his standout play. McDuffie has tallied at least 87 rushing yards and a touchdown in six straight games. McDuffie is 18 yards shy of 1,000 rushing yards on the season. He’d be the 14th player in program history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.

Ball State (5-6) would get bowl eligible with a win here. It comes off a 37-17 home loss to Central Michigan last week. Senior QB Drew Plitt completed 21-of-39 passes for 170 yards, one touchdown and an interception. Plitt was hamstrung by the absence of his number one wide receiver, Justin Hall, being ruled out for the contest. It’s not clear if Hall will play Tuesday.

Should the Cardinals prevail and make a bowl game, it would be just the third time in program history that Ball State has played in bowl games in back-to-back seasons: 2007-08 and 2012-13.

Ball State and Buffalo are slated to square off for the 13th time in series history Tuesday inside Scheumann Stadium. The Cardinals hold a 10-2 lead in the matchup all-time. The matchup is a rematch of last season’s Mid-American Conference Championship, which Ball State won, 38-28.

Since joining the MAC in 1999, this will be just the fifth trip to Ball State for the Bulls. UB is 1-3 at Scheumann Stadium with its lone win coming in 2017.

Western Michigan at Northern Illinois (+3.5)

A 7 p.m. ET kickoff on ESPNU. Western Michigan (6-5) is bowl eligible but comes off a 22-21 loss at Eastern Michigan last week. Broncos wideout Skyy

Moore finished with career-highs in catches (12) and receiving yards (181), and had a 74-yard touchdown. It was his seventh 100-yard performance of the season, and fourth game with 10 or more receptions. This game also put him over 1,000 yards, becoming the first Broncos receiver to top that mark since Corey Davis in 2016.

Kaleb Eleby finished 22-for-29 for 307 yards and a passing touchdown and rushing touchdown. When the Eagles took the lead late in the fourth quarter, Eleby had one of his passes batted down at the line of scrimmage and intercepted by defensive lineman Michael Smith Jr with just 2:24 left. Sean Tyler had 10 carries for 54 yards and a score, while La’Darius Jefferson had 12 rushes for 86 yards.

Northern Illinois (8-3) clinched a spot in the MAC title game with last week’s 33-27 OT win over Buffalo, clinching the school’s eighth MAC West title in the last 12 years. After NIU recovered a Buffalo fumble at the goal line on the Bulls’ opening possession in overtime, running back Clint Ratkovich, burst through the line on the Huskies’ first play on offense and took it 25 yards to the endzone to seal the game and division for NIU.

Ratkovich finished the game with a season-high 75 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 11 carries. His overtime touchdown gave NIU its ninth contest decided by eight points of less on the season and capped a crazy series of events. After going 0-6 a year ago, NIU’s eight-game turnaround has come with a roster that includes 75 players who finished high school in 2020 or 2021 and 11 more who graduated in 2019; of those 86 players, 51 have seen action for NIU in 2021 and 32 are listed on the two-deep this week.

Western Michigan leads the all-time series with NIU, 26-20, after defeating the Huskies, 30-27, last year in Kalamazoo on a field goal by Gavin Peddie with 2:23 to play. In DeKalb, the Huskies hold a narrow 12-11 series lead. Each of the last four games between the teams has been decided by a touchdown or less.