{"id":11514,"date":"2010-12-14T19:28:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T00:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11514"},"modified":"2010-12-14T19:28:18","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T00:28:18","slug":"new-orleans-bowl-ohio-bobcats-vs-troy-trojans-free-college-football-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/new-orleans-bowl-ohio-bobcats-vs-troy-trojans-free-college-football-picks-11514\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans Bowl: Ohio Bobcats vs Troy Trojans Free College Football Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio Bobcats vs Troy Trojans
\nSaturday, 12\/18\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Ohio -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Troy -1.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 58
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 57.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Troy Trojans are in familiar territory in playing in the New Orleans Bowl against the Ohio Bobcats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ohio is quite fortunate to make the postseason after dropping its regular-season finale at Kent State and failing to make the MAC Championship game.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a tough week for us, waiting around,\u201d said coach Frank Solich.\u00a0 \u201cWe had a chance to control our own destiny, but didn\u2019t get it done.\u201d\u00a0 The Bobcats have made four previous bowl appearances, but have yet to break through in the win column, including a 21-17 defeat to Marshall in last year\u2019s Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.\u00a0 The team\u2019s success can be attributed to its success in the red zone, ranking fourth in touchdown percentage inside the 20 yard line, while scoring on 88 percent of its trips, which checks in at No. 17 in the country in that category.\u00a0 Ohio is 8-5 ATS when the line is +3 to -3 this season and the college football lines page is available to monitor the movement.<\/p>\n

The Bobcats will need to ride quarterback Boo Jackson in order to break into the winners column in bowl games and Solich believes the atmosphere in New Orleans would be a great place to pick up the school\u2019s first postseason win.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s almost no negatives in going to a bowl game,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cAnd with New Orleans, you\u2019re talking about a major metro area where they love football and the people treat you great.\u201d\u00a0 Jackson will need to stay away from turning the ball over, as he threw 16 interceptions in just 224 passing attempts this season.<\/p>\n

Troy will be making its third trip to the New Orleans Bowl and completed the regular season with a share of the Sun Belt Conference championship.\u00a0 \u201cWe are all very excited,\u201d coach Larry Blakeney stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe have talked all season about \u2018The Drive for Five\u2019 and part of that drive was to give our players a chance to go back to New Orleans.\u201d\u00a0 The Trojans and Bobcats have never met in football, although the coaches have squared off three times.\u00a0 Coach Blakeney faced off against Solich\u2019s Nebraska teams in 2001, 2002 and 2003, with the Cornhuskers proving victorious in all three games.\u00a0 Troy is 4-8 ATS on the season and 20-17 ATS over the last three campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Trojans have posted a 14-10 all-time record in games played in December and the defense will need to be much-improved in order to gain another victory.\u00a0 Troy\u2019s stop unit has allowed 372 total points thus far during the 2010 season, which is just 15 points less than the school-record 387 points it allowed in 2009.\u00a0 A major part of the defense\u2019s problem has been lack of consistency, with only three players starting in all 12 games this season.\u00a0 The defense must aim for allowing less than 30 points in this contest, considering Ohio is 8-0 when going over that number and 0-4 when falling short.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Bobcats being 7-1 ATS as an underdog, while the Trojans are 21-10-1 ATS following a SU win.<\/p>\n

The college football handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready for a huge bowl season.\u00a0 Don\u2019t miss out and join them today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio Bobcats vs Troy Trojans Saturday, 12\/18\/10, 9:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Ohio -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Troy -1.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 58 Current Total:\u00a0 57.5 Ohio is quite fortunate to make the postseason after dropping its regular-season finale at Kent State and failing to make the MAC Championship game.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":7464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3867,4127,3258,1245,3688,2560,1285],"class_list":["post-11514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-boo-jackson","tag-frank-solich","tag-larry-blakeney","tag-new-orleans-bowl","tag-ohio-bobcats","tag-sun-belt-conference","tag-troy-trojans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11515,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11514\/revisions\/11515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}