Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The Fresno St Bulldogs will hit the highway in Big Ten conference action when they take on the Illinois Fighting Illini in a college football game on Saturday afternoon. Kick off time at Illinois is scheduled for 12:30PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by the Big Ten Network. The LVSC college football odds makers have set the opening point spread in this contest and the home team Illinois Fighting Illini opened as a 3 point favorite with the over under coming in at 58. The early money from the college football betting public has come in on the road underdog Fresno St Bulldogs, as the Illinois Fighting Illini is currently a 2-½ point favorite. The total has see upward movement in the early betting as the over under is currently lined at 59 ½. College football money line bettors can make a play on the favored Illinois Fighting Illini at –150 with the underdog Fresno St Bulldogs bringing back +130 to win without the points spread a factor in the money line bet.
Fresno St sits at 7-4 on the season and industry pundits have them projected for the New Mexico Bowl. The team is coming off a close home win last week beating Louisiana Tech 30-28. Fresno St allowed 230 rushing yards in the victory and teams have been pilling up rushing yards on their defense. They have given up 230 yards or more of rushing yards over their past 5 games. Bulldogs running back Ryan Mathews is scheduled to return into the lineup on Saturday after suffering a concussion and missing most of the Nevada game a few weeks back. The junior running back has rushed for 1491 yards for 14 touchdowns and an impressive 7.0 yards a carry on 213 rushing attempts this season. Junior lefty quarterback Ryan Colburn is hitting on 59.8% of his passes with 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He is coming off a poor performance last week at home to Louisiana Tech with just 40% passing accuracy. Fresno St on defense allows 25.6 points per game. They sit 5th in the WAC in total defense allowing 399 yards per game and a very high 6.5 yards per play against average. Illinois has a disappointing 3-8 season and once again will miss a bowl game. The team has dropped two straight and coming off a hard fought 49-36 loss at Cincinnati as a three touchdown underdog. The team was torched through the air as the Bearcats passed for 399 yards. It was the second straight game that the Fighting Illini gave up over 300 yards passing. It will be senior day at Illinois and senior quarterback Juice Williams after a sophomore campaign in a Rose Bowl is bowless in his junior and senior year. He posted a good start last week at Cincinnati hitting on 21 of 34 for 282 yards, three touchdowns and no picks. He is a run threat and contributed with 67 yards on the ground last week. The Fighting Illini duo of running backs Mikel LeShoure and Jason Ford combine for a 6 yards a carry average. Defensively the Fighting Illini allow 28 points per game. They give up a ton of passing yardage allowing 254 yards per game ranking last in the Big 10 conference. They will need to be good against the stout run attack of Fresno St and Illinois allows 147 yards per game and 4.1 yards per rush attempt ranking 8th in conference.
For the Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: Fresno St Bulldogs are now 5-1 to the under in their 6 road games
The Wagerline consensus has 60.5 the CFB bettors on Illinois -2 1/2
The Wagerline consensus has 57.1% of the CFB bettors playing under 59 1/2
Tags: college football betting odds, fresno st bulldogs versus illinois fighting illini big ten network tv college football betting odds pick preview
