College Football Betting: Rose Bowl
Posted on December 30, 2008 | 2:38 PM ET Filed under:The bowl game that started it all – the one with the most tradition, the grandest setting and the coolest nickname – this year features, as it always should, the champions of the Big 10 Conference versus the champs of the PAC 10.
Joe Paterno's Penn State Nittany Lions go West to take on Pete Carroll's Southern California Trojans in the 95th playing of the Rose Bowl on Thursday afternoon (5 pm Eastern, ABC).
The 11-1 Trojans are posted as solid nine-point favorites over the 11-1 Lions at Oddsmaker.com, with a total of 45. USC can also be gotten at –350 on the Oddsmaker moneyline, with Penn State getting +290 to win the game outright.
The Lions rolled through much of their schedule, such as it was, this season, winning their first eight games by margins of 31, 42, 42, 14, 14, 41, 29 and seven points. Then came that fateful November Saturday in Iowa City, when Penn State suffered its only loss of this season, on a last-second field goal, 24-23 to the Hawkeyes. Otherwise, the Nittany Lions may very well be playing Florida or Oklahoma in the BCS championship game.
USC also dominated, for the most part, its slate of opponents this season, winning games by 45, 32, 43, 28, 69 (!), 56, 22, 35 and 21 points. But the Trojans' Waterloo occurred up in Corvallis in Week 3, when Oregon State upset them 27-21, a loss that eventually cost Southern Cal a spot in the national title game.
The Trojans are led by the nation's top-ranked defense, which allowed on average just eight points and 206 yards of total offense per game.
The Nittany Lions were no slouches on the defensive side of the ball themselves, ranking third in the country in points allowed at 12 PG and fifth overall at 264 YPG.
And both teams ran very balanced offensive attacks. In scoring 40 PPG, Penn State averaged 212 yards on the ground and 241 through the air. In putting up 37.5 PPG, USC averaged 207 yards rushing and 246 yards passing.
The Trojans have played in the last three Rose Bowls, and have won three of the last five, including the last two. And when going up against Big 10 teams in the Grand-Daddy recently, USC has been a cash cow, beating Illinois last year 49-17, and Michigan 32-18 two years ago and 28–14 in 2004, and covering the spread in all three.
Penn State, meanwhile, hasn't played in the Rose Bowl since beating Oregon 38-20 on Jan. 1, 1995.
These two teams played two common opponents this season. USC beat down Ohio State 35-3 back in Week 2 at the LA Coliseum, while Penn State went into Columbus in Week 9 and beat the Buckeyes 13-6. And while the Trojans, as mentioned above, lost at Oregon State 27-21 on a Thursday night in late September, the Lions trounced the Beavers 45-14 a couple of weeks before that back in Happy Valley.
Penn State and USC have not met since 2000, when the Trojans beat the Lions 29-5.
Jeff Sagarin at USAToday.com is ranking the Big 10 as the fourth-best conference according to average team strength in college football this season, while the PAC 10 is ranked sixth.
The totals went 7–4 in Lions games this season, which averaged 53 total points. Meanwhile, the O/Us went 3-8-1 in Trojans games, which averaged 45 points.
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