{"id":18048,"date":"2011-09-26T12:29:49","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T17:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=18048"},"modified":"2011-09-26T12:29:49","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T17:29:49","slug":"college-football-picks-week-5-south-florida-bulls-at-pittsburgh-panthers-big-east-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-football-picks-week-5-south-florida-bulls-at-pittsburgh-panthers-big-east-preview-18048\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Picks Week 5: South Florida Bulls at Pittsburgh Panthers Big East Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 16 South Florida Bulls at Pittsburgh Panthers
\nThursday, 9\/29\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Florida PK
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 South Florida -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
South Florida's B.J. Daniels leads his team into battle Thursday night against Pittsburgh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South Florida heads out on the road for the first time since handing Notre Dame a 23-20 defeat as 9.5-point road underdogs on Sept. 3.\u00a0 The Bulls will enter with a perfect 4-0 record, which includes a 52-24 win over UTEP as 30-point home favorites.\u00a0 The team has out-gained its last three opponents by an incredible 1,124 yards combined.\u00a0 \u201cNever take one for granted,\u201d commented Bulls head coach Skip Holtz of the latest victory.\u00a0 \u201cI mean you\u2019re excited about the win, you\u2019re excited about a lot of positive things.\u201d\u00a0 South Florida is 13-14 ATS over the last two-plus seasons, but has not been a road favorite of a field goal or less over that span.<\/p>\n

The Bulls have tallied consecutive 50-plus offensive performances for the first time in school history, outscoring opponent by an incredible 65-7 in the first quarter.\u00a0 That will certainly be challenged in this prime-time even due to Pittsburgh blanking its first four opponents in the opening 15 minutes this season.\u00a0 South Florida\u2019s running game was truly dominant in gaining 373 yards last week, while quarterback B.J. Daniels can\u2019t be forgotten in throwing for 1,071 passing yards this season.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh opened the 2011 campaign with two victories, but has since been handed two losses by Iowa (31-27) and Notre Dame (15-12).\u00a0 The Panthers were three and seven-point underdogs respectively in those contest, being out-gained by 183 yards combined.\u00a0 \u201cWe have to learn to finish, and we\u2019re going to,\u201d commented quarterback Tino Sunseri.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s the thing that \u2018s so frustrating right now.\u201d\u00a0 The program will be making its 17th Thursday night ESPN appearance, dropping four of its last five such appearances.\u00a0 Pittsburgh has tallied a 7-1 ATS mark in Weeks 5 through 9 the past two years.<\/p>\n

The Panthers will be facing the Bulls for the ninth time, leading the series 5-3, with three consecutive wins.\u00a0 Pitt handed South Florida a 17-10 loss last year, while coming away with a 41-14 home win during the 2009 meeting.\u00a0 The team is likely to hand the ball off to running back Ray Graham quite often in this contest, as he leads the Big East Conference and ranks eighth nationally in gaining 127 yards per game.\u00a0 Since the 2000 campaign, the team is 40-12 when it has a 100-yard rusher.\u00a0 On the other side of the ball, Pittsburgh ranks 34th against the run, surrendering just 105.5 yards per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Panthers due to their 10-1 ATS mark following a straight-up loss, while the Bulls are 0-6 ATS on Thursday.<\/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":"

No. 16 South Florida Bulls at Pittsburgh Panthers Thursday, 9\/29\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Florida PK Current Betting Line:\u00a0 South Florida -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 N\/A Current Total:\u00a0 N\/A Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker South Florida heads out on the road for the first time since handing Notre Dame a 23-20 defeat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":3995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3356,559,615,5468,1155],"class_list":["post-18048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-b-j-daniels","tag-big-east","tag-pittsburgh-panthers","tag-ray-graham","tag-south-florida-bulls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18048","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=18048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18049,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18048\/revisions\/18049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}