Season to date, every snap, FBS games included. Success rate is the share of plays that stay on schedule. PPA is predicted points added per play, CFBD's name for EPA. Explosive plays are runs of 15 or more and completions of 20 or more. Yards per dropback charges the sacks. Last season's FCS medians: success .412 and .427 allowed, explosive 7.8 percent, 6.30 yards a dropback and 6.49 allowed.

Friday, 8:30, ESPN. Montana State has won nineteen straight, and Justin Lamson had a procedure Wednesday and is unlikely to play, per Brent Vigen, who added "we'll see." The whisper out of Bozeman is a meniscus, and a meniscus is not a "we'll see." Adam Jones took one carry against Northern Arizona and left. Taco Dowler sat, and Vigen has not said he plays Friday. Patrick Duchien made his first start in that game. "Patrick didn't have to be Justin today," Vigen said.

The Montana State offense leads the league in everything that matters: .554 success, +0.37 points added a play, 8.63 yards a dropback, and a .397 success rate on passing downs. Idaho's defense is the mirror: +0.33 allowed per play, 7.76 yards a dropback allowed, an explosive play allowed on 12.8 percent of snaps, second-worst to Portland State. The Vandals have taken the ball away twice in four games, both times against Lamar. That is the case for the Cats, and it is the whole case, and it was written by a quarterback who is not playing.

Idaho is 0-4 off a bye, and its three FCS losses were by four, six and two. "We are three to five plays away from winning all our FCS matchups," Thomas Ford Jr. said Monday. Joshua Wood's passing game makes 6.97 yards a dropback, third in the league, and succeeds on a third of its passing downs, also third, which is an offense that can live behind schedule. Kalshi has the Cats by 14.8. Our line has them by 21.9 and does not know Lamson is hurt, or Jones, or Dowler; the market knows some of it. This one came out before print, so it counts, and I'm taking the two touchdowns with the team that has been three plays from 3-1.

6:00, ESPN+, Greater Zion Stadium, and it is the Battle for the Ax. Southern Utah leads the series 6-1 and has won the last three. Eighteen Thunderbirds share a high school with at least one Trailblazer. "When you get to Saturday and see a kid you sat in a living room with on the other sideline, or two guys who grew up playing together lining up across from each other, it adds something special," DeLane Fitzgerald said this week.

Southern Utah holds the ball 35.1 minutes a game and runs it on 60.9 percent of its snaps, both the most in the league, and the runs work: 6.43 a carry with the sacks taken out, second only to Montana's 6.52. Utah Tech's defense gives up 6.51 a carry, second-worst in the league behind only Southern Utah's own, and allows +0.39 points a play, the worst. The Trailblazers are 0-5, have given the ball away eleven times and taken it away twice, a margin of minus-nine, and their offense subtracts expected points from itself, −0.05 a snap.

The one thing to know about Southern Utah's defense is that when it gets beat, it gets beat big: 1.74 points added on the plays it allows that succeed, the most explosive-against in the league by a distance, and Utah Tech produces an explosive play on 4.8 percent of its snaps, the fewest. Kalshi has Southern Utah by 11.8 and we have 12.2. The computers and the market agree, and I'm taking the team that keeps the ball.

6:00, ESPN+. Weber State has won seven straight in the series; Cal Poly's last win over the Wildcats was 2014. Cal Poly is 2-0 in the league and has not started 3-0 in conference play in fourteen seasons, back when it was running the triple option.

When a Weber State play works, it works bigger than anyone's: 1.55 points added on its successful plays, with an explosive play on 11.7 percent of snaps, third in the league. The Wildcats have also given the ball away thirteen times, the most in the league, eight of them interceptions, and six of them came last Saturday in a 44-41 home loss to Portland State. "Turnovers killed us," Eric Kjar said. Devin Brown left that game with an ankle and a finger, and a freshman, Nate Dahle, threw five touchdowns in his place.

Cal Poly's offense stays on schedule, .546 on standard downs, third in the league, and runs for 5.85 a carry with the sacks out. Weber State's defense allows 6.34 a carry, third-worst, and 3.50 line yards, which is a front that gets moved. Kalshi has Cal Poly by 5.5 and we have 5.0, and the half-point says Weber. Thirteen giveaways, a quarterback with a bad ankle and a freshman behind him say the other thing.

8:30, ESPN2, Homecoming in Davis and the Aggies' first regular-season home game on a linear ESPN network. Eastern Washington leads the series 11-1 and has never lost in Davis, 5-0, and the one Aggie win was 48-38 in Cheney two years ago.

The Eagles were 1-4 at this point in 2024 and 2025 too. "We've got to find the first one before we talk about the second one," Aaron Best said Tuesday. Tim Plough, whose team lost by forty on Saturday, said of the Eagles that "they could easily be 4-1 right now." The numbers say they could easily be 0-5. Eastern Washington's passing game makes 5.84 yards a dropback and gives up a sack on 7.2 percent of them, the worst protection in the league. The defense gets home, 6.7 percent sacks and a disruption rate of 10.8, both second in the league, and then gives up 7.86 yards a dropback anyway, second-worst to Portland State. Pressure without coverage.

The Aggies' soft spot is pass defense, 7.63 yards a dropback allowed, and the Eagles are the wrong team to exploit it. Kalshi has the Aggies by 9.3 and we have 8.6, and the computers lean Eagles by a hair. A team that loses by forty at home gets one Saturday of being furious about it, and Eastern Washington is the team walking into the building. I'll lay the nine.

2:00, Scripps and ESPN+, Homecoming. Kalshi has Montana by 17.4, we have 22.8, and I'm laying it with the Griz; the case is in Wednesday's scouting report.