{"id":20686,"date":"2021-12-30T03:27:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T03:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=20686"},"modified":"2021-12-30T03:27:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T03:27:18","slug":"2021-peach-bowl-over-under-preview-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/ncaaf\/2021-peach-bowl-over-under-preview-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 Peach Bowl Over-Under Preview & Pick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year\u2019s Peach Bowl has lost a lot of its luster. The first New Year\u2019s Six Bowl of this bowl season won\u2019t feature the best player for either the Pittsburgh Panthers or the Michigan State Spartans. Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett and Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker III both opted out of this game in order to prepare for the 2022 NFL Draft. That means there are a lot of question marks on both sides<\/a> ahead of this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2021 Peach Bowl will take place on Thursday, December 30, 2021, at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College Football Betting Odds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pittsburgh +2.5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michigan State -2.5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total 55.5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a banner year for Pittsburgh. The Panthers won their first ACC title with a blowout win over Wake Forest in the ACC Championship Game, and Kenny Pickett is likely to be the first quarterback off the board in April. Their only two losses were by a combined seven points to Western Michigan and Miami, but they are underdogs<\/a> against Michigan State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michigan State had one of the most impressive turnarounds in 2021. The Spartans went 2-5 in Mel Tucker\u2019s first season in East Lansing, but they went 10-2 this year and were ranked in the top five. They knocked off rival Michigan before getting blasted in road games against Purdue and Ohio State in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Pittsburgh Has the Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Patti will start under center for the Panthers with Pickett off to the NFL. Patti has had plenty of time in this system, but he has thrown just 62 passes over the last three years. He has performed relatively well in that limited time though, completing 64.5% of his passes for 458 yards with three touchdowns and an interception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biletnikoff Award winner Jordan Addison was the top receiver in the country this year. Addison caught 93 passes for 1,479 yards and 17 touchdowns, and he is just a sophomore. Jared Wayne posted solid numbers as the second option on the Panthers, but deep ball threat Taysir Mack has opted out of this game too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michigan State has a solid front seven. The Spartans allowed 3.4 YPC this season, and opponents couldn\u2019t establish the line of scrimmage. However, this secondary ranked dead last in the nation by allowing 356.3 YPG through the air. Patti could light it up against the Spartans, but offensive coordinator Mark Whipple moved to Nebraska at the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Michigan State Has the Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll likely see Jordan Simmons get the bulk of the carries with Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III leaving for the NFL. Simmons ran for 255 yards and averaged 4.7 YPC during the regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spartans will probably ask Payton Thorne to throw the ball more too. Thorne didn\u2019t throw the ball a ton this year, but he did thrive off play action when asked to move the chains through the air. He completed 60.8% of his passes for 2,886 yards with 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Thorne has two elite receivers to target in Jayden Reed and a healthy Jalen Nailor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pittsburgh was excellent at stopping the run this season. The Panthers allowed just 2.7 YPC and 91.2 YPG on the ground to rank in the top six nationally in both categories. However, the secondary left something to be desired. Starting cornerback Damarri Mathis opted out of the Peach Bowl to focus on the NFL Draft too, so Thorne could have one of his biggest games of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prediction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The over is the best bet<\/a> in the Peach Bowl. It\u2019s a little risky to bet the over with an unproven quarterback like Patti, but neither one of these secondaries is good while both Pitt and Michigan State have excellent receivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow our <\/em>Twitter account<\/em><\/a> for the latest sports news and wagering odds, and come to<\/em> our <\/em>Instagram<\/em><\/a> for more useful betting info too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s Peach Bowl has lost a lot of its luster. The first New Year\u2019s Six Bowl of this bowl…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":6702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20686","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\/20686","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=20686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20692,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20686\/revisions\/20692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}