The Miami-Ohio Redhawks and the Northern Illinois Huskies meet in college football MAC-tion from Huskie Stadium on Wednesday night.

The Miami-Ohio Redhawks will look to bounce back from a 37-21 loss to Ohio in their last game. Brett Gabbert has thrown for 816 yards and 4 touchdowns on 64.3% passing while Keyon Mozee has a team-high 455 rushing yards this season. Mac Hippenhammer also has 41 catches for 551 receiving yards and 7 touchdowns while two more Redhawks have 200+ receiving yards as well this season. On defense, Ryan McWood has a team-high 99 total tackles while Corey Suttle and Brian Ugwu each have 5 sacks and Matthew Salopek has 3.5 sacks.

The Northern Illinois Huskies will be out to build on their 24-21 win over Western Michigan last time out. Rocky Lombardi’s thrown for 645 yards, 5 touchdowns and an interception on 66.7% passing while Harrison Waylee has a team-high 863 rushing yards with 5 touchdowns and Antario Brown has 592 rushing yards and a team-high 6 touchdowns this season. Cole Tucker leads the Huskies with 41 catches for 599 yards and 4 scores while Kacper Rutkiewicz has 325 receiving yards and a team-high 5 touchdowns. On defense, Daveren Rayner has a team-high 71 total tackles and 3.5 sacks while Michael Kennedy has a team-high 5.5 sacks and Devonte O’Malley has 4 sacks as well this season.

Miami-Ohio is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 road games and 6-2 ATS in their last 8 games following an ATS loss while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 road games. Northern Illinois is 0-4 ATS in their last 4 home games and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games following an ATS win while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 home games.

I get why NIU being favored at home makes sense, but the Redhawks still have an outside chance at bowl eligibility if they can win here and beat Ball State next week. Northern Illinois is simply playing out the string at this point and I just think that it’s worth backing the more motivated team at a near coin flip. Give me Miami-Ohio here.