{"id":17959,"date":"2011-09-23T19:20:48","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T00:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17959"},"modified":"2011-09-23T19:20:48","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T00:20:48","slug":"college-football-predictions-week-4-notre-dame-fighting-irish-at-pittsburgh-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-football-predictions-week-4-notre-dame-fighting-irish-at-pittsburgh-panthers-17959\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Predictions Week 4: Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Pittsburgh Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Pittsburgh Panthers
\nSaturday, 9\/24\/11, 12:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Notre Dame -5.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Notre Dame -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 56
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 56
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Notre Dame WR Michael Floyd is one of the better players in college football<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Notre Dame finally got its first win last week in coming away with a 31-13 victory over the Michigan State Spartans as six-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Fighting Irish are a highly talented team and one of five schools to have individual players ranked among the top 30 nationally in passing yards, receiving yards and rushing yards.\u00a0 Possibly the best player of the group is wide receiver Michael Floyd, who ranks fourth with 10.3 receptions per game and 132.3 receiving yards a contest.\u00a0 Tommy Rees deserves some attention after being the first quarterback to pick up wins over Michigan State, USC and a bowl game since 1993.\u00a0 Notre Dame is 4-13 ATS as a favorite.<\/p>\n

The Fighting Irish have a big advantage in this contest due to second-year head coach Brian Kelly having previous experience against the Big East Conference.\u00a0 He spent three years at Cincinnati and tallied a 34-6 record in that span, including a 17-4 mark in conference action.\u00a0 This year\u2019s matchup will mark the 67th meeting between the two schools, with Notre Dame holding a 45-20-1 series lead, including wins in 13 of the last 17 meetings.\u00a0 Last year\u2019s meeting resulted as a push for college football picks, as the Irish came away with a 23-17 win as six-point home favorites.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh was unable to hold off Iowa in falling, 31-27, as three-point road underdogs last week.\u00a0 The Panthers are led by the offensive talents of running back Ray Graham, who ranks fifth in the nation with 139.67 rushing yards a game.\u00a0 He also has six rushing touchdowns, which is good enough to be tied for third nationally.\u00a0 The rushing game has always been important for this program, posting a 40-12 record when it has a 100-yard rusher.\u00a0 Pittsburgh is 14-11 ATS over the last two-plus campaigns and 0-3 ATS as an underdog.<\/p>\n

The Panthers have had all kinds of trouble finishing games, getting outscored by a 49-13 margin in the fourth quarter.\u00a0 Pittsburgh quarterback Tino Sunseri will need to do a better job managing the game, but he did complete 23 of 33 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns.\u00a0 On the other side of the ball, the defense is averaging three sacks a game and enters as the 23rd-best unit against the run, giving up just 80 yards a game.\u00a0 Turnovers are always key when facing the Irish, as they have been known to make mistakes, which is key for the Panthers who have forced at least one turnover in 24 of the past 29 games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Panthers due to the underdog being 5-0-1 ATS in the last six meetings, while the Irish are 1-4 ATS as a road favorite.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Pittsburgh Panthers Saturday, 9\/24\/11, 12:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Notre Dame -5.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Notre Dame -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 56 Current Total:\u00a0 56 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Notre Dame finally got its first win last week in coming away with a 31-13 victory over the Michigan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3640,1311,615,5468,5089],"class_list":["post-17959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-michael-floyd","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-pittsburgh-panthers","tag-ray-graham","tag-tommy-rees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17959","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=17959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17960,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17959\/revisions\/17960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}