{"id":20642,"date":"2011-12-29T23:30:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T04:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20642"},"modified":"2011-12-29T14:10:05","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T19:10:05","slug":"college-bowl-picks-mississippi-state-bulldogs-vs-wake-forest-demon-deacons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-bowl-picks-mississippi-state-bulldogs-vs-wake-forest-demon-deacons-20642\/","title":{"rendered":"College Bowl Picks: Mississippi State Bulldogs vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mississippi State Bulldogs vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
\nFriday, 12\/30\/11, 6:40 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Mississippi State -6.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Mississippi State -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 48
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 47.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are back in a bowl game after a two-year hiatus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mississippi State closes its 2011 season with its second-straight trip to a postseason bowl games in taking on Wake Forest in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl at LP Field in Nashville.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m really proud of our guys\u2014the way they battled, the way they fought,\u201d commented Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen this week.\u00a0 The program is making consecutive trips to a bowl game for the first time since 1999-2000.\u00a0 The Bulldogs captured a dominating 52-14 victory in last year\u2019s Gator Bowl against the Michigan Wolverines.\u00a0 Mississippi State is 11-5 ATS as a favorite the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs are currently on pace to rack up the third most statistically impressive offensive season in school history, while the defensive unit ranks second in the Southeastern Conference in allowing opponents to score touchdowns in just 19-of-43 opportunities inside the red zone.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that Mississippi State hasn\u2019t lost to an unranked foe in Mullen\u2019s three seasons with the program.\u00a0 Defensive coordinator Chris Wilson has developed one of the best pass defenses in the country, ranking 23rd nationally, allowing just 12 touchdowns with 12 interceptions.<\/p>\n

Wake Forest returns to the postseason after a two-year hiatus and finished the regular season with a 6-6 overall record.\u00a0 \u201cI thought that we played hard all year,\u201d stated Demon Deacons head coach Jim Grobe.\u00a0 The Demon Deacons are led by sophomore quarterback Tanner Price, who finished the regular season with 2,803 passing yards and 20 touchdowns.\u00a0 He will definitely try and target junior Chris Givens, catching 74 passes for a school-record 1,276 receiving yards.\u00a0 Wake Forest is 2-1 ATS when playing with two or more weeks of rest the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Demon Deacons will be making their 10th bowl appearance, posting a 6-3 mark in those contests.\u00a0 Wake Forest will look to bounce back from a disastrous 41-7 loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores to finish the season as one-point favorites, as the program has been out-gained in seven of its last eight games.\u00a0 Protecting the football has been a strength for this squad during the 2011 campaign, turning the ball over just 12 times.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Bulldogs due to their 5-0 ATS mark in December, while the Demon Deacons are 2-5 ATS as an underdog of 3.5 to 10 points.<\/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":"

Mississippi State Bulldogs vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons Friday, 12\/30\/11, 6:40 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Mississippi State -6.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Mississippi State -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 48 Current Total:\u00a0 47.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Mississippi State closes its 2011 season with its second-straight trip to a postseason bowl games in taking on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":16536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[5365,586,5462,2898,5617,3028],"class_list":["post-20642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-chris-givens","tag-dan-mullen","tag-lp-field","tag-mississippi-state-bulldogs","tag-tanner-price","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642","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=20642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20644,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions\/20644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}