Central Michigan finishes as against-the-spread 'champion' in NCAA regular season

The Central Michigan Chippewas will play in the Mid-American Conference Championship Game this Saturday for the first time since 2009. So while the Chips have that matchup and a bowl game still to come, they can officially be crowned as the against-the-spread national champions for the 2019 college football regular season. They finished 9-2-1 ATS, with those two losses the fewest in the country.

The Chips failed to cover as 34-point underdogs on Sept. 7 when they were destroyed 61-0 at ranked and eventual Big Ten West Division champion Wisconsin. CMU also failed to cover on Oct. 26 at Buffalo when the Chippewas were 2.5-point underdogs and lost 43-20. Coach Jim McElwain's team is an opening 7-point favorite on the college football odds for the MAC title game at noon ET on Saturday against Miami of Ohio from Ford Field in Detroit.

A handful of other teams also finished with nine ATS wins, but they all had three ATS losses. Ohio State and Clemson were two of those. Central Michigan also was tied as the best 'over' bet this season at 9-3 over-under along with Massachusetts and SMU.

The worst NCAA pick this season was another MAC school: Akron at 1-11 ATS. The Zips finished as the country's only winless straight-up team at 0-12 and their lone cover was Nov. 20 vs. Miami of Ohio. The RedHawks were -28.5 and escaped 20-17.

Finally, the worst 'over' team in the nation was San Diego State at 1-11 O/U. The Aztecs were one of the nation's top defensive teams in allowing just 12.8 points per game but also one of the worst offensively at 19.0 ppg. SDSU finished tied with Hawaii atop the Mountain West's West Division, but the Rainbow Warriors won the tiebreaker and will face Boise State in that title game on Saturday. The Broncos are 13.5-point home favorites.