Michigan State Spartans vs Oregon Ducks Prediction, Odds and Picks for Friday, 10/04/24

I entered the season with extremely high expectations for this new-look Oregon offense, and while it’s taken a few weeks for this group to gel, the results are starting to speak for themselves. The Ducks’ struggles against Idaho and Boise State were well documented, and there was cause for concern on both sides of the ball. However, Dan head coach Lanning’s team broke out in a big way by turning in a dominant performance against Oregon State, and the Ducks followed that up with a 34-13 victory over UCLA last week.

While Oregon failed to cover the closing number in that game, the box score against the Bruins was about as dominant as you could draw up — with Oregon out-gaining UCLA by nearly 300 yards and holding the Bruins to merely 3.6 yards per play. In fact, if it wasn’t for a pick-6 right before halftime, Oregon would have likely cleared 40 points and comfortably covered the near 4-touchdown number. Much like in a couple of their previous games, the Ducks also went to a conservative game-plan in the second half and made it clear that they just wanted to get out of Los Angeles with a victory. It feels like OC Will Stein’s offense is holding a bit back with a massive date against Ohio State on the horizon, but despite keeping things a bit vanilla through this first month of the season, this Oregon offense still sits at 11th in success rate, 5th in EPA per rush, 18th in EPA per dropback and 18th in 3rd/4th down success (College Football Insiders). With the offense now clicking and and a defense that currently sits at 6th in success rate allowed, 4th in passing success rate and 3rd in passes defended, the Ducks now return home to face a Michigan State team that should be overmatched in this one.

The Spartans were just dominated by Ohio State and have clear issues on offense, particularly in the ground game (109th in EPA per rush). Oregon should be able to bottle up Michigan State on the ground in standard downs and force Spartans quarterback Aidan Chiles into obvious passing situations on 3rd and long. This doesn’t bode well for Chiles against this Ducks defensive front that just had a party in the backfield against UCLA a week ago en route to 7 tackles for loss and multiple sacks. Chiles is a talented player, but he’s also extremely prone to making mistakes, having already thrown 9 interceptions on just 136 passing attempts this season. The Ducks’defense should be on high alert and leave nothing to chance against an offense that has tallied just 7 touchdowns in 18 red-zone trips this season. On the other side, Michigan State’s defense was just dominated by Ohio State on the ground, which is exactly what Lanning and Stein should look to do in a game where the Ducks won’t want to show too much on offense with the Buckeyes on deck next week. Let’s lay the big number with Oregon.

Michigan State vs Oregon prediction: Oregon -23.5 (-115) available at time of publishing. Playable to -24.

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