Cincinnati at Pittsburgh College Football Odds

Written December 2, 2009 by Kyle Hunter

The #5 ranked Cincinnati Bearcats will travel to Pittsburgh to take on the #15 ranked Pittsburgh Panthers in what is a battle for the Big East crown. Cincinnati still has slim national title hopes and they definitely want to keep them alive. Pittsburgh is coming off a tough loss at the hands of rival West Virginia, but the Panthers would win the Big East with a victory in this game because they would have the tiebreaker. Don’t worry, there is more than enough motivation for both teams going into this huge match up. Get an extra $100 to bet on football when you sign up at Bodog and fund your account with at least $100.

The Cincinnati Bearcats are 11-0 and their offense just keeps on clicking. Tony Pike is back and he is already back to setting records. Last weekend he threw 6 touchdown passes in their win over Illinois. Pike is a great leader at quarterback and he makes very few mistakes. He has thrown 23 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions on the season so far. Pike may well have been in the running for the Heisman trophy had he not been injured earlier this year. Mardy Gilyard does a little bit of everything for Cincinnati, and he does it well. Gilyard is a big play receiver, and a great kickoff and punt returner. Though they are often overlooked Isiah Pead and Jacob Ramsey form a nice duo of running backs for Cincinnati. Pead and Ramsey are averaging 6.5 and 6.3 yards per carry on the season. The question mark now would be the defense, which was so strong earlier in the season. Lately they have been allowing a lot of points and tons of yards in wins over UConn, West Virginia, and Illinois. They need a solid performance from the defense Saturday.

Pittsburgh had their hearts broken by West Virginia last weekend, but they did give plenty of effort in their comeback. The Panthers lost the turnover battle 2 to 0 and that ended up being the difference. Bill Stull has done a great job this year, but he didn’t have his best game last weekend. The Panthers will need Stull to go back to his ways of taking good care of the football and managing the game well if they are to win this one. The Panthers have a special runner in Dion Lewis, who averages 5.8 yards per carry and has almost 1,500 yards on the season. Since Cincinnati has had such a hard time stopping the run of late, don’t be surprised if Pitt tries to run the ball down their throat in this one. The Panthers defense wasn’t great last year, but they are much better this season. They are allowing just 17.7 points per game and 320 total yards per game.

The college football betting lines show the Cincinnati Bearcats as 1 point road favorites in this pivotal match up. The posted total is set at 57.5. When making your football predictions, remember that the under is 7-1 in Pitt’s last 8 conference games, but the over is 13-6-1 in Cincinnati’s last 20 road games.

The Panthers need to exploit Cincinnati’s defense to win this game because it really is unrealistic to think the Panthers defense can shut down the Cincinnati offense completely. Cincinnati will need to stop the run and force Bill Stull to beat them with the passing game. Cincinnati is the team that wants a shootout, while Pitt would like to control the game and the clock in this one. This game should be a great one! Check out the next paragraph for information on how to access my pick for this contest.

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