Friday, May 25th, 2012
The Penn St Nittany Lions will hit the road to face the Alabama Crimson Tide in a college football game on Saturday night.
This contest will kick off from Alabama at 7PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN.
The Las Vegas point spread opened up in this game with the home club Alabama Crimson Tide opening up as 12 point favorites.
The early money from the college football betting public has come on the side of the road underdog Penn St Nittany Lions as the Alabama Crimson Tide is now favored by 10 ½ points.
Money line bettors looking to play on the favored Alabama Crimson Tide will lay -475 odds with the road underdog Penn St Nittany Lions bringing back +380 to pull off the upset victory without the need for taking the points.
Penn St returns 7 starters to their offense and 5 to their defense this season. The team completed play in 2009 with a record of 11-2 and capped off a nice season with a 19-17 bowl victory against LSU as a 1 point underdog.
The team opened up play last week and they earned the 44-14 victory against Youngstown St an FCS school.
Penn St fell behind 7-3 in the first quarter by allowing an 80 yard touchdown pass by Youngstown St quarterback Kurt Hess. The Nittany Lions recovered and posted 41 straight points en route to victory.
With 2009 starter Daryl Clark out of elgibility the team turns the reigns at quarterback to freshman quarterback Robert Bolden. The six foot four 208 pound signal caller in his debut last week completed 20 of 29 passes for 239 yards two touchdowns and 1 interception.
The Nittany Lions are experienced at running back behind senior ball carrier Evan Royster and backup junior Stephfon Green. Royster had 11 carries last week for 40 yards with Green getting 6 rushes for 32 yards and a touchdown. Royster had 1195 yards rushing in 2009 with an impressive 5.7 yards a carry average.
Penn St has two returning starters out wide in senor Graham Zug and junior Derek Moye. Moye had 5 catches for 61 yards last week. Senior Bret Brackett produced 8 catches for 98 yards and 2 touchdowns against Youngstown St.
The Nittany Lions were solid on defense last season allowing their opponents just 12 points and 275 yards per game.
Last week against Youngstown St the Penn St defense allowed just 264 yards and only 2.2 yards per rush. Penn St was solid defensively limiting Youngstown St to just 2-12 on third down conversions.
The defending National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide returns 8 starters to their offense but only 2 to their defense. Alabama was a perfect 14-0 last season and capped it off with the 37-21 BCS Championship victory against the Texas Longhorns.
Alabama began a new campaign with the 48-3 thumping over lowly San Jose St Spartans from the WAC conference.
Senior quarterback Greg McElroy returns for the Tide in 2010. He completed nearly 61% of his passes in 2009 and had 17 touchdowns with only 4 picks.
Last week McElroy hit on 13 of 15 passes for 218 yards a touchdown and no picks.
The Tide’s star running back junior Mark Ingram underwent a knee surgery and will likely miss this game against Penn St as he continues his rehab.
Still Penn St was able to pile over 260 rushing yard on San Jose St and was led by freshman running back Eddie Lacy who rushed for 111 yards on 13 rushing attempts with two touchdowns.
Alabama’s top two wide receivers from a year ago return in 2010 in juniors Julio Jones and Marquis Maze. Jones had 6 catches for 93 yards and a touchdown last week with Maze contributing with a touchdown on 3 catches and 68 yards.
The Tide was also solid defensively limiting opponents to just 12 points and only 245 yards per game.
In week 1 the Crimson Tide held the Spartans without a touchdown. San Jose St produced a mere 175 yards and were only 1 of 13 on third down conversions.
For the Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: Alabama Crimson Tide is 3-1 ATS in their past 4 meetings
Tags: alabama crimson tide, betting, college football, espn tv, Odds, penn st nittany lions, pick, preview, saturday, september 11th 2010
