The Penn State Nittany Lions will face the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Saturday at the latter’s HighPoint.com Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Penn State bounced back from its loss to Michigan with a win over Wisconsin last week while Rutgers has lost nine in a row after winning on opening week.
Dual threat quarterback Trace McSorley looks to become the winningest quarterback in the history of Penn State. McSorley has recorded 30 wins in his illustrious Happy Valley career and one more win will put him in a pedestal all by himself. He will get a good chance to do that on Saturday against a struggling Rutgers team.
The Nittany Lions clinched their 14th winning season with their victory over Wisconsin last week. Running back Miles Sanders led the Penn State offense with 159 rushing yards and one touchdown. With that performance, Sanders becomes the 26th running back in Penn State history to run for 100 yards in a single season. Penn State went 3-3 in the red zone last week, improving their impressive efficiency inside the 20 to 38 out of 40 for the season with 33 touchdowns scored.
The Scarlet Knights have lost nine straight games after a 35-7 win over Texas State in their first game of the season. Rutgers has been outscored by an aggregate of 156 points in Big Ten competition and are currently the worst scoring team in the nation at 14.5 points per game. They have scored 1 touchdown or fewer in a total of three games this season.
Freshman quarterback Artur Sitkowski has completed just 42% of his passes this season for a total of 1,140 yards with 4 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. Raheem Blackshear has 111 carries and lead the team with 478 rushing yards with two scores. Blackshear also leads the team with 40 receptions for 332 yards and two receiving touchdowns.
Penn State is 11-3 SU in their last 14 games played and 4-1 SU in their last five games played on the road. Meanwhile, Rutgers is 0-5 in their last 5 games played and 0-5 in their last 5 games at home.
The Nittany Lions have won 26 out of 28 all-time matches against the Scarlet Knights. They have won 11 in a row dating back to 1988. Interestingly, Rutgers held a 6-0 lead over Penn State last year only to lose the game 6-35.
This game is going to be a mismatch. The Nittany Lions bounced back from their defeat to Michigan by defeating Wisconsin last November 10th. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Knights were blown out by an elite team in Michigan last weekend. Picking the winner in this game is out of the question for me. And that’s why the odds are so lopsided. The more interesting bets here are the spread and the score which we will talk about below. As for the winner though, It’s obvious but I’ll say it: We’re picking the Penn State Nittany Lions to beat the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on 11/17/18.
The Nittany Lions are 6-3 ATS in their last nine games played and 8-4 ATS in their last 12 games on the road. Rutgers is 4-2 ATS in their last 6 games and 4-2 ATS in their last 6 games at home. Head to head, the Nittany Lions are 2-1 ATS in their last three games against the Scarlet Knights. Penn State is 2-2 ATS in their four road games this season while Rutgers is 4-2 ATS in six home games this year.
Penn State is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games after allowing over 200 rushing yards in their previous game and 7-1-1 ATS in their last 9 games after allowing a total of 275 yards in their previous game. The Nittany Lions are also 4-0-1 ATS in their last 5 games after passing for a total of less than 170 yards in their previous game.
I have no doubt that the Nittany Lions can cover this spread and do so rather easily. They can easily score 50 points on Rutgers while allowing the Scarlet Knights to score less than double digits. But my worry is that because they will blow out this game early, they are going to take out their starters early too. That could be a problem for the spread betting in this game. If you ask me though, I’ll take that risk and bet on Penn State blowing out Rutgers. Prediction: Penn State -28
The total has gone over in 12 out of the last 17 games of Penn State and the over is also 6-1 in the last seven games of the Nittany Lions. On the other hand, the total has gone under in four out of the last 6 games of Rutgers. Head to head, the under is 4-0 in the four meetings between these two teams.
The Scarlet Knights are the worst scoring team in the nation and have scored no more than 17 points in each of their last 9 games so that’s a worry here. Rutgers though, allows 34.3 points per game which is ranked only105th in the nation. That’s going to be a problem against Penn State which is ranked 26th in the nation in scoring at 35.7 points per game. I think Penn State can cover the score by itself against a defense like what the Scarlet Knights have. Prediction: Over 49.5
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