{"id":7437,"date":"2019-11-07T04:53:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T04:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=7437"},"modified":"2019-11-07T04:53:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T04:53:55","slug":"college-football-penn-state-nittany-lions-at-minnesota-golden-gophers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/ncaaf\/college-football-penn-state-nittany-lions-at-minnesota-golden-gophers\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football: Penn State Nittany Lions at Minnesota Golden Gophers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The clash between\nAlabama and LSU is not the only meeting of undefeated teams this\nSaturday. The Big Ten will have the best noon game of the season when\nthe Minnesota Golden Gophers host the Penn State Nittany Lions.\nMinnesota was not given any respect by the College Football Playoff\nSelection Committee, ranking No. 17 in the initial rankings, while\nPenn State was ranked No. 4. The Golden Gophers would likely vault\ninto the top ten with a victory on Saturday, but they are nearly a\ntouchdown underdog per the college\nfootball betting odds<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS AT MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS
NCAA FOOTBALL ODDS: PENN STATE -6.5
NCAA FOOTBALL TOTAL: 47<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This line opened\nwith Penn State at -7 and it quickly rose to see the Nittany Lions at\n-8. Over the last day, we have seen money come in on Minnesota\nthough, moving the line back down under a touchdown. There has been a\nsteady trickle of money on the under since this line was released\nmoving the total from 48 to 47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECENT HISTORY<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

These teams don\u2019t\nplay often since they are on opposite sides of the Big Ten. Penn\nState squeaked past Minnesota 29-26 in their last meeting back in\n2016, but the Golden Gophers emerged victorious here in 2013. The\nNittany Lions have won five of the last six meetings between these\ntwo schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHEN PENN STATE HAS THE BALL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This was supposed to\nbe a rebuilding year for the Nittany Lions, but James Franklin has\ndone an incredible job with this team. Penn State had odds\nof 25-1 to win the Big Ten<\/a> at the start of the season,\nbut the Nittany Lions\u2019 odds have dropped considerably since that\npoint. The offense has had a lot to do with that, as its ranked 14th<\/sup>\nin the nation per SP+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sean Clifford has\ncompleted 62 percent of his passes this season. He is averaging 8.9\nYPA, and he has thrown 20 touchdowns against just three\ninterceptions. K.J. Hamler has been his favorite target, catching 37\npasses for 620 yards and eight touchdowns, and he has emerged as one\nof the best playmakers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penn State\u2019s run\ngame has been good, but not great. The Nittany Lions have employed a\nrunning back by committee approach so no one on the team has more\nthan 350 rushing yards this season. Noah Cain and Journey Brown are\neach averaging more than 5.0 YPC, while Clifford has run more often\nthan any other player on the team using a lot of RPOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Golden Gophers\nhave one of the better defenses in the country, but they have not\nfaced a top quarterback all season. In fact, Minnesota has faced an\nopponent\u2019s back-up quarterback in each of its last five games,\ncasting doubt on just how good this defense might be in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHEN MINNESOTA HAS THE BALL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Tanner Morgan has\nquietly been one of the best quarterbacks in the country. Morgan has\ncompleted 65.3 percent of his passes, and he is averaging 10.2 YPA\nthis season. He has thrown 18 touchdowns against four interceptions,\nand the lion\u2019s share of his passes have gone to Rashod Bateman and\nTyler Johnson. Bateman and Johnson have combined to catch 74 passes\nfor 1,270 yards and 13 touchdowns, and only one other receiver has\nmore than 70 receiving yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ground game has\nbeen solid. Rodney Smith has led the way with 889 yards and seven\ntouchdowns, and he is averaging 5.8 YPC. Mohamed Ibrahim and Shannon\nBrooks have done a good job backing up Smith, helping this offense be\nranked No. 8 in SP+. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penn State\u2019s\ndefense is rated sixth in the country per SP+, and the Nittany Lions\nare surrendering just 4.0 YPC. The run defense has been the nation\u2019s\nbest, allowing 2.2 YPC, and the secondary has been very good too. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREDICTIONS<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A lot has been made of Minnesota\u2019s somewhat easy schedule, but Penn State\u2019s hasn\u2019t been particularly difficult. The Nittany Lions\u2019 two toughest opponents have been Iowa and Michigan, and they won both of those games by just one score each. The Golden Gophers have a great chance to win this game outright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get the latest college football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BetOnline.ag on Instagram<\/a>–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The clash between Alabama and LSU is not the only meeting of undefeated teams this Saturday. The Big Ten will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7437","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\/7437","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=7437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7439,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions\/7439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}