Live Bet Saturday | August 29, 2026 | Hour 2

**Dustin Swedelson** (0:01)
This is Live Bet Saturday on VSiN, the sports betting network.
Live Bet Saturday rolls on from the D Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas. I'm Dustin Swedelson. Thanks for making us part of your day. However, you may be tuning in, SiriusXM Channel 158, YouTube TV, the VSiN Watch app and radio affiliates across the United States. Of God bless America. USC got a stop while we were away. They thwarted the attempt in the red zone by San Jose State. All of a sudden, you look up Trojan's offense. They're out from deep in their own territory, currently working from their own 30 This offense looking to go up three scores, leading San Jose State 14-0 early, or I guess midway through the second quarter there. In Charlottesville, Virginia, the Cavaliers are on the board first. A field goal from Virginia, they lead 3-0. They're laying 6 1⁄2 total is 44 1⁄2.
Later on today, we have an interesting matchup in the MAC. Yes, the MAC.
Sacramento State is in the MAC. That's what we're trying to figure out. Eastern Michigan hosts them. They're 8 1⁄2 point favorites. Total is 52 1⁄2 to help us break this down. We're going out to the Progressive Guest Line. Welcoming in Rob Rubick, Eastern Michigan radio analyst, 12th rounder in 82 at a Grand Valley State, one of the great Division II dynasties in all of college football. Played seven years in the NFL for the Detroit Lions, and he joins us now on the Progressive Guest Line.
Rob, how crazy is that to be talked about Sacramento State in the Mac this year? This is a team that wanted to make the jump. They wanted to go to the Pac-12. They said no. They wanted to go to the Mountain West. They said no. Now, they're in the Mac, which makes for a really wacky travel situation. What do you know about this squad coming to town?

**Rob Rubick** (1:43)
Well, you don't know a lot about them to begin with because they're FCS, and then they get a new coach this year, so they were a team that primarily liked to run the ball. Last year, we were very effective running the football, but you don't know what you're going to get.
It's a big jump, but if you're going to make a jump from FCS, the MAC is a nice transition conference because it is a mid-major. It's a conference that's very close to each other, if you're not from Sacramento.
But you know, so this is so, here's Dustin, here's the weird part. We lose Northern Illinois outside Chicago to the Mountain West. And we get Sacramento State from Northern California. You know, couldn't they get together a little bit, say, hey, maybe I'll just come there and you stay there? But yeah, it's interesting. And it's a transition. But like I said, it should be a pretty good transition to smooth them for Sacramento State.

**Dustin Swedelson** (2:29)
Rob, you're asking a lot for the NCAA to make sense here. That's just not what they're in the business of doing these days.

**Rob Rubick** (2:35)
How about- The East Coast Stanford Cardinal, yeah. Exactly. In the ACC, yeah.

**Dustin Swedelson** (2:40)
Rob Rubick is with us, Eastern Michigan Radio Analyst, former NFL player, seven years in the league. How about Chris Creighton? We're 12 years into this thing now, went four and eight a year ago, but he has his quarterback, Noah Kimback, a fifth year kid originally at Michigan State, now has been at Eastern Michigan a couple of seasons. How do you feel about the offense coming into week zero?

**Rob Rubick** (3:02)
Well, I feel great because we have a returning quarterback for the first time since 2016, 2017
People need to remember the MAC is kind of like the Toledo Mudhands for the Tigers. We're like a AAA for the power force, power five, whatever you want to call them now. And we get gleaned every year. We come and take our best players.
And some of our best players don't even go and start necessarily for the Alabamas or the Michigan or the Michigan States or Ohio State, but they will back up. They have enough money now in those schools that they will go and pay backups. So they'll get our starters out of the MAC. So what's hard is you're rebuilding every year, whether it's the offensive line, defensive line, secondary, as Chris Creighton has done a really good job. And we've been limited financially. We haven't had that money. You know, this year they did have a million to spend in NIL money. But Chris has been competitive without even having a wallet. And these other MAC schools, like Miami, Ohio, I think has nine million or ten million to spend in Ohio and Toledo. They all have money in their coffers, but we don't. Now, we have a million this year, and Chris will get a lot out of a little. And I think he's a tremendous coach. He did it the right way. He came up through the system with small schools, had success. And I've always said this. We had Kaelin DeBoer, an Alabama head coach, came through Eastern with our OC for a few years and was a tremendous coach. And I knew Kaelin well, and we still keep in touch. And I just knew that he was a new great thing. People say, well, he was at Sioux Falls in NAIA. I don't care. Winning is winning when you're playing apples against apples or oranges against oranges. And that's what he's done. And, you know, he's been successful at Alabama. And I think Chris has an unbelievable job taking a program like Eastern, which hasn't struggled. Historically, he has not been a football power. Let's not fool ourselves. But he has made us competitive, has taken us in bowl games and had a lot of life back into the program.