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Published: November 24, 2009
The Pittsburgh Panthers will travel in a key Big East conference college football game when they play the West Virginia Mountaineers on Friday night in prime time. Kick off at West Virginia is scheduled for 7PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN2. The LVSC college football odds makers have set the opening point spread in this game and the game was opened as a pick. The early money from the college football betting public has come in on the road team, as the Pittsburgh Panthers are currently a 2-point favorite.
When these two Big East rivals met in 2008 it was Pittsburgh earning a 19-15 home victory as a 2-½ point underdog. The Panthers were able to rush for 190 yards in victory. Pittsburgh sits at 9-1 on the year and is a perfect 5-0 in conference. Should Pittsburgh defeat Cincinnati next week no matter what happens against West Virginia, it will give the Panthers a BCS bowl berth because both teams would be 6-1 but Pittsburgh would get the BCS bowl berth with the tiebreaker. So this game has very little meaning for Pittsburgh’s shot at a BCS bowl game but if they want to win the Big East conference outright they must win out. The Panthers are coming off the bye and prior to that was a 27-22 home victory against Notre Dame. Freshman running back Dion Lewis is coming off a 152 yards rushing performance against Notre Dame. Lewis has rushed for 1291 yards on the season with 5.8 yards a carry average. Senior quarterback Bill Stull has shown great improvement this year with 18 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. Two passing teams were able to get yardage on the Pittsburgh defense as Notre Dame had 283 yards passing last week and NC State defeated Pittsburgh with 322 yards passing. Pittsburgh will need to be good against the run in containing Noel Devine and the Panthers allow 102 yards rushing per game and just 3.0 yards per rush attempt ranking 2nd in the Big East conference. West Virginia is 7-3 this season and is eliminated from the Big East conference race. The Mountaineers are coming off the bye week and prior to it the Mountaineers played Cincinnati to a 24-21 loss. Mountaineer running back Noel Devine has been contained over his past three games. Two weeks ago Devine had just 88 yards on 25 carries against Cincinnati, three weeks ago just 56 yards on 13 carries against Louisville and four weeks ago just 42 yards on 17 carries against South Florida. Staring quarterback Jarrett Brown is hitting on 65% of his passes this season with 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. The Mountaineers will need to defend the run against Pittsburgh’s top running back Dion Lewis. West Virginia is 4th in the Big East against the run allowing 121 yards a carry and 3.6 yards per rush attempt.
Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: Pittsburgh is 5-1 to the under in their past 6 games
The Wagerline consensus has 65.2% of the CFB bettors on Pittsburgh –2
