The Pinstripe Bowl features one team with a relatively intact roster and coaching staff versus another team which is in a state of transition on its roster and coaching staff. It will be fascinating to see how this clash of opposites unfolds in Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maryland Terrapins vs. Virginia Tech Hokies Location:<\/strong> Yankee Stadium, The Bronx, NY<\/p>\n\n\n\n CFB Odds:<\/strong> Maryland -3.5<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maryland Terrapins<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Terrapins were good enough to get to a bowl game because they handled the weaker teams on their schedule. Maryland beat an injury-plagued Indiana team, took care of Rutgers, and barely defeated Illinois. Those wins, combined with victories over Howard, Kent State, and West Virginia, were enough to lift the Terps to the postseason. The West Virginia win is clearly the best win on the Terrapins\u2019 slate this season, and that came in Week 1 of this campaign, back on Labor Day weekend. Maryland has regressed from that point onward, instead of building and growing. This is why the Terps are a very narrow favorite against a Virginia Tech team whose roster has been depleted by injuries and transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maryland struggles to protect the ball and to withstand physical opponents. Michigan and Ohio State crushed Maryland. The Terps had played those teams more competitively in previous seasons, but not this year. Maryland could not catch the ball or make tough plays against Penn State, drowning in a sea of mistakes. The Terrapins were able to beat the bad teams on their schedule, but with the possible exception of West Virginia, they didn\u2019t beat any of the good teams on their 2021 slate. Bowl teams come in a lot of forms and flavors, many different shapes and sizes. There are 6-6 bowl teams who played very tough schedules and won a few tough games, but then there are teams such as Maryland, who beat inferior teams and lost to superior teams, with very little room in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Virginia Tech Hokies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hokies had another difficult season, which they salvaged by beating archrival Virginia for the 16th<\/sup> time in 17 tries. Virginia Tech played great defense against Virginia, holding the Cavaliers to just 24 points. Virginia had scored over 40 points in several games this season, so Virginia Tech\u2019s performance became that much better when viewed in context. Tech\u2019s defense had struggled for much of the season, giving up 41 points at home to Syracuse and 38 to Miami. Virginia Tech\u2019s defense wasn\u2019t always bad, but it did crumble in fourth quarters of games, as shown against Notre Dame in addition to the Syracuse loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, as much as the defense failed to make key plays in big games, the offense was by far the weaker side of the ball for Virginia Tech this season. The Hokies failed in the red zone late in a six-point loss to West Virginia. They scored just three points in an impotent loss to Boston College. Virginia Tech was held to seven points in a listless and decisive home-field loss to Pittsburgh. This offense rarely put all the pieces together in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Virginia Tech fired coach Justin Fuente late in the regular season and lost quarterback Braxton Burmeister to the transfer portal. The Hokies are in transition, and that might seem to put them at a disadvantage. Yet, given how inconsistent Virginia Tech was during the season, losing certain personnel might not be such a negative thing. Maryland is not an especially good team. Virginia Tech players who haven\u2019t had many opportunities to play could treat this game as an audition for 2022 jobs. The Hokies will surprise Maryland here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Terrapins vs. Hokies Prediction:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hokies 24, Terrapins 20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pinstripe Bowl features one team with a relatively intact roster and coaching staff versus another team which is in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20619,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions\/20619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Date:<\/strong> Wednesday, December 29th, 2:15 PM ET<\/p>\n\n\n\n