Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The Arkansas Razorbacks from the SEC conference will do battle with Conference USA champions the East Carolina Pirates in the Liberty Bowl college football game on Saturday January 2nd. Kick off time in Memphis Tennessee is scheduled for 5:30PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN. The LVSC college football odds makers have set the opening point spread in this contest and the Arkansas Razorbacks were opened as a 10 point favorite with the over under coming in at 60. The early money from the college football betting public has come in on the underdog East Carolina Pirates, as the Arkansas Razorbacks are currently a 7-point favorite. The total has seen early movement in the betting towards the over, as the total is currently lined at 64 for the college football bettors to play into. College football money line gamblers can make a play on the favored Arkansas Razorbacks at –330 with the underdog East Carolina Pirates returning +250 to win without the need for getting points.
The Arkansas Razorbacks concluded their regular season with a 7-5 record. The team is coming off a hard fought 33-30 overtime loss to the LSU Tigers on the road. Sophomore quarterback Ryan Mallett struggled in the game hitting on just 43% of his passes with a touchdown and a pick. The Razorback signal caller concluded his season hitting on 57% of his passes with 29 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. Mallett had a pattern on the season where he struggled big time against the top teams in the SEC. In addition to his very poor outing against LSU, Mallett hit on just 44% of his passes against Florida, 35% against Mississippi and 34% against Alabama that all resulted in losses. Sophomore running back Broderick Green saw the bulk of the carries rushing for a 4.2 yards a carry average with 11 touchdowns. Arkansas was explosive on offense this season averaging 37 points per game and 439 yards but it was the defense that held this team back. Arkansas allowed nearly 26 points per game to their opponents and was the 12th and last team in the SEC conference in total defense allowing 401 yards per game and a very high 5.9 yards a play against average. Bobby Petrino is in his second year at Arkansas and is leading the team to its first bowl game in his tenure with the team. The defense has performed poorly up to SEC standards in Petrino’s 2 years with the Razorbacks. East Carolina completed their regular season campaign with a 9-4 record and is champions of Conference USA. The team is coming off a 38-32 victory over Houston in the Conference USA title game in a contest that was played on the Pirates home field. Despite allowing 557 total yards to the Houston Cougars the Pirates benefited from 4 Cougar turnovers and held a +3 turnover margin in the game. Senior quarterback Patrick Pinkney leads East Carolina. The signal caller completed 59% of his passes for 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. East Carolina has won four straight games and during this period Pinkney has gone without an interception pass. East Carolina lost all three games they had against BCS conference competition. They came no closer than 13 points to their opponents in those games. Senior running back Dominque Lindsey led the Pirates in rushing this season with 1029 yards on 206 carries and a 5.0 yards a carry average. Lindsey has saw action in all four years in the program. Defensively the Pirates allow 22 points per game. They will need to defend the pass well in this game and the Pirates do not. They rank 7th in Conference USA in pass defense allowing 262 yards per game and 23 touchdown passes. Skip Holtz is in his fifth year as head coach at East Carolina and is leading the team to their fourth bowl game. East Carolina is 1-2 straight up and against the spread in those 3 bowl games with Holtz at the helm. The team is coming off a 25-19 loss as a 3-point favorite to Kentucky in their bowl game last season.
For the Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: Arkansas Razorbacks are 4-0 ATS in their past 4 games
The Wagerline consensus has 62.4% of the CFB bettors on Arkansas -7
The Wagerline consensus has 53.6% of the CFB bettors playing under 64
Tags: arkansas razorbacks versus east carolina pirates espn tv liberty bowl college football betting odds pick preview, college football betting odds
