Rutgers vs. Pittsburgh Prediction, Pick Against the Spread

PITTSBURGH PANTHERS (5-1) -6 @ RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS (4-1)

Tonight’s college football action features a pretty decent game for a Friday night.  Pittsburgh will be traveling to take on the Rutgers.  After Rutgers was embarrassed in week one by Cincinnati, a lot of people wrote off Rutgers as a terrible team, but we didn’t realize just how good of a team Cincinnati truly is.  Despite rattling off four straight wins, Rutgers hasn’t beaten anyone impressive.  They destroyed Texas Southern last week 42-0 and beat Maryland 34-13 the week before.

Pittsburgh is coming off a last-minute win against UCONN at home last week.  Pittsburgh has an edge at the QB position.  Bill Stull is completing 67% of his passes, has passed for 13 TDs with just 3 INTs, and has 1256 yards.  That’s almost double Rutgers’ QB Tom Savage’s output, who is only completing 55% of his passes.

What’s impressed me with Rutgers lately is their defense and play against the run.  In Rutger’s last 3 games, they’ve completely shut down the run, allowing just 0.6 yards per attempt.  On the year, they’re allowing just 2.3 yards per attempt.  In all other stats, these teams match up pretty well.  Both score an average of 31-34 points while the defenses allow 16-18 points.

With Pittsburgh’s QB, that gives Pittsburgh a tremendous edge, but I’m really impressed with how Rutgers has been able to completely shut down the run the last few games.

10/16 experts like Pittsburgh to cover the spread and Pittsburgh has 67% of the consensus vote.  I’m going against the grain here.  I think Pittsburgh may have done a little too much partying last week after the UCONN win and comes out with a lack of focus.

I’ll take the home dog with the points in this Friday Night matchup.  I’m not very confident in the pick because Pittsburgh has the better QB, but I’m just going with a hunch here.  Pittsburgh may come out and dominate this game, but I’m trying to get cute and call them out here.  It may make me look stupid, it may make me look like a genius, or maybe just plain lucky, but let’s write this one down and see what happens.  I think Pittsburgh wins, but doesn’t cover the number.  I wouldn’t advise you to take Rutgers, but I’m just trying to recommend that you stay away from taking Pittsburgh -6 on the road.

Prediction: Pittsburgh 27 – Rutgers 24

Free Pick: Rutgers +6.5 (Confidence: 1.5/5) (L)

The pick lost by a half point. I said don’t bet on Rutgers. I was really was just trying to talk you out of taking Pittsburgh, which was a good idea since this was a close game.