Capital One Bowl Betting – #11 Penn State vs. #15 Louisiana State

College Football Bowl Betting – Capital One Bowl

January 1st, 2010 – 1:00 pm EST

#11 Penn State (10-2) vs. #15 Louisiana State (9-3)

Louisiana State Tigers +2 +110 Over 44
Penn State Nittany Lions -2 -130 Under 44

On January 1, 2010, the No. 11 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions and the No. 15 ranked Louisiana State Tigers travel to Orlando Florida for their last game of the year at the Capital One Bowl. The Capital One Bowl, due to its heavily financed sponsorship is considered the most prestigious non-BCS Bowl.

The BetOnline.com Bookmakers have Penn State Nittany Lionsas small -2 point favorites and have posted an over/under of 44 for the game. A straight up wager on the underdog LSU will pay college bettors +110 on the moneyline.

When you think of Penn State, you think of Joe Paterno. Paterno has led the Nittany Lions for 43 straight years; it makes one wonder how many more bowl games he has left in him. Joe Pa’s overall record in bowl games in a good one, 23-11-1, including 3-1 in the past four years.

Penn State had another good year finishing the season at 10-2, but weren’t as kind to bettors going 6-6 against the spread.

Offensively, quarterback Daryll Clark and tailback Evan Royster led the Nittany Lions. Clark tossed 23 TD passes and rushed for six more while Royster gained over 1100 yards on the ground and add 8 scores of his own. While Penn State averaged almost 30 points a game, that number is a little misleading because against teams that finished 6-6 or better, the Penn State scoring average dropped to 20.5 a game. Nevertheless, the real strength of the Nittany Lions is their defense.

The defense ranked fourth in the nation by only allowing 11.8 points a game to opponents. They defend against the pass well and they put up a wall against the run, ranking 19 th and 9 th respectively. What stands out for PSU is their ability to get to the opposing quarterback; they totaled 35 sacks, ranking them 8 th.

The LSU Tigers finished with a 9-3 record and were worse than Penn State to bettors finishing 5-7 ATS.

LSU’s 2009 was not one the offensive can be proud of, ranking 99 th in passing yards, 85 th in rushing yards and those two factors held the Tigers to only 25.5 points a game, ranking them 73 rd in the nation. What killed the Tigers this year was their pass protection, LSU gave up too many sacks, ranking them 106 th overall.

Defensively, LSU stopped opponents, holding them to 16 points a game good for 12 th nationally.

Both teams have good defenses but offensively LSU can’t matchup to Penn State, the sack total mismatch scares me away from picking the Tigers. This will be low scoring game but Penn State’s offense will do just enough to win the Capital One Bowl.

Capital Once Bowl Free Pick: Penn State Nittany Lions -2 and under 44