Free Pick | NCAA Football | Saturday | Oct. 15

Nelly’s has a college football top play going for Saturday + 2/3 offers both Saturday & Sunday:

Free Pick Saturday: #143 Nebraska +14 over Purdue 6:30 PM CT

Close games have been the norm for Purdue with all five FBS games decided by 10 or fewer points. That has meant three straight wins after losing the first two FBS games of the season, with an FCS win mixed in. Last week’s win over Maryland was an improbable result as they had one of the lowest in-game win probabilities of the teams that won last week in college football. Purdue had only 13 net rushing yards and caught huge breaks with a missed PAT from Maryland changing many of the late game situations. Maryland still rallied to tie the game in the final minute but then had the tying two-point conversion called back on a penalty. It is too soon to tell how much the win at Minnesota is worth for Purdue but that was also a narrow escape where things broke right after a tie score late, while Minnesota’s best player didn’t play. Nebraska has had a challenging season and has gone through significant changes already but the Cornhuskers have settled in with back-to-back Big Ten wins and still are a threat in the Big Ten West race. Purdue won last season 28-23 in Lincoln in a familiar narrow-loss outcome for Nebraska and the line a year later in the move to West Lafayette has swung three touchdowns with Nebraska -7.5 at home last season. The gap between these teams has not likely changed that much and Purdue has a significant list of players with possible injury concerns this week for a roster that doesn’t have the best depth. Aidan O’Connell is regarded as one of the better Big Ten quarterbacks, but he has struggled this season and may not be completely healthy having already sat out a game this season. Casey Thompson has better numbers at this point in the season and Nebraska’s offense has appealing potential as a backdoor cover candidate even if things don’t break right early in this game.