Lafayette vs. Oregon State Preview

There is a college football game that will be played this coming Saturday that matches my contrarian, nostalgic, hipster tastes perfectly.

That would be Lafayette traveling to Corvallis to take on the Oregon State Beavers on the CW Network, Saturday at 10 PM.

So why, even as a nostalgic hipster contrarian, does this game appeal to me so much that I'm devoting an entire column to it? FBS hosting FCS teams is not unusual, and FCS teams going across the country to pick up that FBS paycheck isn't, either (San Diego State hosted Stony Brook earlier in the year, for example).

There's a few reasons, but one big one is that this game is happening in the middle of the season rather than the beginning. As a sports hipster, I like non-conference games that occur middle or late in the season, when there are fewer of those, and conference games early in the season, when there are fewer of those.

Still, Oregon State is an independent until next year, so all their games are non-conference. True! But how many of those games are on national television?

Well, all of them, you still might reasonably argue. This is the streaming age. Every last FBS game is gobbled by some network, streaming service, or internet platform. CW has a contract with Oregon State, as well as Washington State (and the ACC).

All of this is true, but this on national TV over the air. Which means, even if you are on old-timer with nothing but an antenna and a TV, you can still watch this game! And while that is true still for many other games airing on FOX, NBC, CBS, or ABC, those games are usually big ones (how BORING!) They would not bother with Lafayette vs. Oregon State. CW claims to have coverage over 99.8% of the country.

Plus, Oregon State vs. Lafayette has come together because Oregon State, being only temporarily independent between gigs in the old Pac 12 and the new Pac 12, had to scramble to put together a schedule last year and this year. That's the only reason Lafayette is on it in the middle of the season. These two teams have never played before and will probably never play again.

And because Lafayette is pretty good for an FCS team and Oregon State is a rank, winless FBS team, this game has a chance to be good! Let's dig in!

These days, it's hard for me to frame a preview without betting in mind (not just for degenerate reasons, but point spreads are basically a predictive model of sorts, and a reliable one), and that makes this tough, because I could not find a published line on this game. I tried, too — I queried half a dozen AI engines. More on that later.

So let's turn to Bill Connelly of ESPN, whose SP+ model accounts for every single team that plays college football — not just FBS and FCS, but every team, down to NAIA and a couple of uncategorized, unaffiliated teams.

On his model, Oregon State gets a "score" of 36.8 and Lafayette one of 30.1. That suggests that if Bill Connelly is setting the line, and the game were on a neutral field, the Beavers would be 6.7-point favorites.

It's not on a neutral field, of course. So let's give Oregon State three extra points, to 9.7, and throw in an extra point because Lafayette has to travel across the country without the travel amenities a Power 5 team would have. 10.7.

I still think that's a bit low. While (contrary to popular opinion) I think parity is near an all-time high between the FCS and FBS, I also think Oregon State regardless still maintains a roster of better and more highly-recruited athletes than Lafayette can generally get.

Oregon State also just fired its head coach, and that may provide a bump for them. This most notably happened with UCLA, who looked terrible before firing DeShaun Foster and now appear to be world beaters.

That said, I couldn't find much data looking at how teams do against the spread in their first game after a mid-season head coach firing. All I could find was how that went in 2021 specifically, and teams were 6-6 ATS in that case.

All in all, I am thinking Oregon State wins this game by 16-18 points. While there doesn't appear to be a published betting line anywhere yet, there will be some by Friday or so. That's when FCS games often start getting point spreads at sportsbooks.

That brings me back to AI. I asked six AI services this exact question:

"I know it's early in the week for this, and bookmakers usually don't release lines on games involving FCS teams until a day or two before the game, but can you find a line anywhere (a point spread) for Lafayette vs. Oregon State, which is a game scheduled for Saturday night?"

None found any, but the answers I got were nevertheless very interesting.

I don't know how much you know about querying AI, but one universal truth seems to be that it really, really wants to help (so to speak). They will never leave it at "Sorry! Couldn't find anything. Tough luck."

Lots gave me an explanation of why games involving FCS teams don't get a line until later in the week, which I did not ask it.

Still others tried to guess what the line is GOING to be, and that's a little more interesting and potentially helpful.

Deepseek said:

A reliable projection from established sources like ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) can give us a clue. Based on that model and comparable games from past seasons, the opening line for this game is projected to be in the range of: Oregon State -42.5 to -45.5

Grok said:

Predictive analytics from ESPN give Oregon State a strong edge: 91.4% win probability (vs. 8.6% for Lafayette), implying a projected margin of around 20-25 points in the Beavers' favor.

How about that? They are both using ESPN tools, but come up with wildly different guesses of what the line ultimately will be. Also, I have to dock Grok (ha, no pun intended, but delighted it happened) for going on to say:

"Once lines open, expect Oregon State to be favored by -18 to -24, based on similar recent FCS-FBS games (e.g., Oregon State covered -21.5 vs. San Jose State last year). I'll keep an eye out if you want an update closer to kickoff."

San Jose State, of course, is not an FCS team.

ChatGPT splits the difference, and comes up with a more firm source at that:

According to OddsTrader, the game opened at Oregon State -31½ (−110) and has since moved to Oregon State -32 (−110) as of Oct 14.

I followed the OddsTrader link and found no line. I don't know if it was there and gone or ChatGPT just messed up. I'm disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to AI, but that's so specific and right in-between the other two guesses that maybe it was there at some point.

CoPilot similarly split the difference, using OddsShark as a source:

According to Odds Shark, the predicted score for the game is Oregon State 34.8, Lafayette 3.0, suggesting a projected spread of approximately Oregon State -31.8. While this isn't an official betting line from a sportsbook, it reflects a consensus projection based on available data.

Meta AI straight-up said yes, there is a line, and provided the same Oddshark link that CoPilot did (which itself may have been made and "written" by AI behind a pen name ... who knows these days?), so CoPilot 1, Meta AI 0 in terms of understanding what they are looking at.

So let's see what the line actually ends up being. I will take Oregon State up to 17 or 18, but if the collective AI guesses are right, the line will be a good bit higher than that, and the higher it is, the more I'm pounding the Lafayette Leopards (or, as I've come to learn they are referenced in local media, the Pards).