{"id":12266,"date":"2011-01-07T23:00:07","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T04:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12266"},"modified":"2011-01-07T14:02:29","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T19:02:29","slug":"free-college-football-bowl-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-pittsburgh-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-college-football-bowl-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-pittsburgh-panthers-12266\/","title":{"rendered":"Free College Football Bowl Picks: Kentucky Wildcats vs Pittsburgh Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky Wildcats vs Pittsburgh Panthers
\nSaturday, 1\/8\/11, 12:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -2
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -3.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 52
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 52.<\/strong>5<\/p>\n

\"Pittsburgh<\/a>
The Pittsburgh Panthers are favored over the Kentucky Wildcats despite the firing of head coach Dave Wannstedt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kentucky will make its school-record fifth consecutive postseason appearance when playing in the BBVA Compass Bowl on Saturday.\u00a0 The Wildcats will be making their 15th bowl appearance overall and carry an 8-6 record in those games into this contest.\u00a0 Many experts perceive the team being lucky to receive a bowl invitation due to going 2-6 in SEC play and recording three non-conference victories over Western Kentucky, Akron and Charleston Southern.\u00a0 Head coach Joker Phillips knows that his squad is in for a battle against a talented Pitt team to close out the 2010-11 season.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve had a chance to watch Pitt numerous times,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cTheir running attack is very strong and their quarterback completes more than 65 percent of his passes.\u201d\u00a0 Kentucky is 10-12 ATS as an underdog over the past three years and currently receiving points on the college football lines page.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats appearance in this particular bowl game marks the first time in school history that a coach in the program has gone to a bowl game in his first season.\u00a0 Kentucky\u2019s six victories this season is the most for a first-year head coach since 1954.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is led by a passing attack that was second in the SEC and 21st in the country averaging 274.14 yards a game with 26 touchdowns.\u00a0 The unit will be missing an integral part of that success, as quarterback Mike Hartline has been suspended for the bowl game due to an arrest on December 10.\u00a0 On the other side of the ball, the pass defense ranks fifth in the SEC and 18th in the country, holding the opposition to just 183.8 passing yards a game.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh makes its 27th all-time postseason appearance and third consecutive since 2008, but will be playing without head coach Dave Wannstedt, who was fired at the end of the season.\u00a0 In fact, the Panthers also had to fire replacement Michael Haywood due to being jailed on a domestic violence charge.\u00a0 \u201cThis was a hard season, a tough year all the way around, on and off the field,\u201d said athletic director Steve Pederson.\u00a0 \u201cThat wears on everyone.\u201d\u00a0 The Panthers were in the drivers seat to a BCS berth through the Big East Conference with a 3-0 record to start conference play, but the team fell flat and finished the regular season with a 7-5 record and an embarrassing 35-10 loss to West Virginia.\u00a0 Pittsburgh is 15-11 ATS as a favorite.<\/p>\n

The Panthers will meet the Wildcats for the first time in school history on Saturday and the program hasn\u2019t played a Southeastern Conference opponent since 1983.\u00a0 Pittsburgh is 27-12 over the last 39 games, the program\u2019s winningest stretch since the 2001-04 campaigns.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the team\u2019s eight losses over the last two seasons have been by a combined 75 points, an average of just 9.4 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Wildcats due to their 12-3-1 ATS mark in non-conference games, while the Panthers are 1-4 ATS in bowl games.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the final bowl games and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports take care of you today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kentucky Wildcats vs Pittsburgh Panthers Saturday, 1\/8\/11, 12:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -2 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -3.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 52 Current Total:\u00a0 52.5 Kentucky will make its school-record fifth consecutive postseason appearance when playing in the BBVA Compass Bowl on Saturday.\u00a0 The Wildcats will be making their 15th bowl appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[385,4331,876,4330,615,3875],"class_list":["post-12266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-dave-wannstedt","tag-joker-phillips","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-mike-hartline","tag-pittsburgh-panthers","tag-southeastern-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12266","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=12266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12268,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12266\/revisions\/12268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}