Sat, Oct 10 · 12:35 PM ET
Ball State at Northwestern
Northwestern favored by 34.5 · total 53.5
Game has kicked off — lines shown are the pre-kickoff close.
Ball StateCardinals
Away · Mid-American
+34.5
—
ML
NorthwesternWildcats
Home · Big Ten
-34.5
—
ML
Bet it or track it
Tap a price to send it to your DraftKings betslip. Tail it instead — or as well — and it gets graded into My Record once the game is final. Pushes are settled as pushes, which matters here: a 3 or a 7 is the most common margin in college football.
Returning production
| Ball State | Northwestern | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | 6% | 89% |
| Passing | 0% | 94% |
| Rushing | -104%* | 88% |
| Receiving | 32% | 86% |
* Outside 0–100% on purpose — production is PPA-weighted, so a departing player who cost his team yards pushes the share above 100 and a returning group with negative combined output shows below zero.
The read
- The spread has moved from -36.5 to -34.5 since it opened, toward the away side.
- A total of 53.5 sits right around the middle of real college football scores (the median FBS game lands on 54). That places the number; it does not predict the result — overs land almost exactly 50% against closing totals.
- SP+ and the market differ by 11.4 points — the market rates the home side higher. Worth knowing, but not a signal: we backtested betting that disagreement and it went 49.8% against the spread, versus the 52.4% needed to break even.
Team profile
With the ball
Without it
Last three seasons
Ball State
12-10 ATS · 6-16 SU
13-8-1 O/U · 5-8 away
Northwestern
10-11-2 ATS · 9-14 SU
12-11 O/U · 3-1 home
A record, not a signal — we measured team-level situational splits at 50% against the spread. Useful for knowing a team, not for picking one.
How games at these numbers have gone
- Spread 34.5 — the 28-35 point band. In 425 archived games at this number, the favorite covered 46.6% of the time — a coin flip once the 95% range (41.9–51.3%) is taken into account.
- Total 53.5 — this game's spread sits in the 28+ point band. In 715 archived games with a spread this size, the over hit 54.5% of the time (95% range 50.9–58.2%), against a 52.38% break-even rate at −110.
Measured on our archive of FBS games with a closing line and a final score. Context, not a pick — see every band.
SP+ team strength · 2026
SP+ implies Northwestern -23.1 versus the market's -34.5 — a 11.4-point disagreement.
Context, not a pick — tap the for what these numbers mean and what we measured.
Line movement
Spread (home)
-36.5 → -34.5+2.0
Total
52.5 → 53.5+1.0
"From" is the first price we recorded, not necessarily the market open — DraftKings publishes no opening number, so we only claim what we saw.
Odds via DraftKings, refreshed every 30 minutes; movement is measured from our own stored snapshots. Confirm the price at your book. 21+.