St. Petersburg Bowl Betting – Golden Knights vs. Scarlet Knights
Game-day: 12/19/2009
Kick-off: 8:00 pm EST
The Central Florida Golden Knights take on Rutgers in what amounts to a home game in the St. Petersburg Bowl.
The game, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, isn’t that far away from the campus of Central Florida in Orlando. That makes the trip to their bowl game quite easy. That’s not the case for Rutgers who have to travel all the way from New Jersey to take on the Golden Knights.
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It was a down season for Rutgers who was one of the favorites, along with Cincinnati, South Florida, West Virginia and Pittsburgh, in the Big East. Pitt and Cincy ended up dominating the conference. They also dominated the Scarlet Knights who lost 24 to 17 to Pitt as 6 point underdogs and 47 to 15 to Cincinnati as 4 ½ point underdogs.
Rutgers couldn’t get past West Virginia either as 1 point favorites 24 to 21 and lost to Syracuse, in one of the most disturbing ATS losses by any team in the college football sportsbook this season, 31 to 13 as 10 point favorites.
Central Florida played two teams of note this season, Miami and Texas. Against the Hurricanes, the Golden Knights lost 27 to 7 as 12 point underdogs and against Texas the Golden Knights lost 35 to 3 as 36 ½ point underdogs. Central Florida’s other two losses weren’t that bad, actually, and one of the loses, to East Carolina 19 to 14 as 10 point underdogs speaks volumes about how tough this team can be.
Below are the NCAAF odds in this game.
Central Florida Golden Knights +2 ½ -110 +120 O 44 ½ -110
Rutgers Scarlet Knights -2 ½ -110 -140 U 44 ½ -110
Here are a few online wagering trends for this game.
The Central Florida Knights are 6 and 1 against the spread in their last 7 games as an underdog.
The Under is 4 and 1 in the Central Florida Knights last 5 games as an underdog.
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are 3-0-1 ATS in their last 4 bowl games.
The Under is 6 and 0 in the Rutgers Scarlet Knights last 6 non-conference games. 
Central Florida averages 26 points per game while Rutgers averages 27 points per game. Together the total if both teams hit their average would be 53 in the St. Petersburg Bowl.
Looking at each team’s past games, that’s a definitely possible, but there’s something about both teams that needs to be considered. First, the reason that I’m highlighting the point averages for both teams is because I just don’t feel that there is enough evidence to pick a winner ATS in this game.
Rutgers has played the better teams, but Central Florida has shown the ability to really step it up, like they did against East Carolina, when they’ve had to. Betting the total makes more sense to me.
So, what will it be? Over or Under? The thing about both teams is that they’ve played in more under than over games this season.
The total in Central Florida’s games have gone under 6 out of 11 times this season. Although the total has gone over in the Golden Knights’ last 3 games, the trends point to an under game in the St. Petersburg bowl.
The same can be said for Rutgers. Rutgers’ games went under 8 times in 12 games this season. Rutgers last two games did go over but those games were against Louisville, whom Rutgers figured to destroy, and West Virginia, who is a very good scoring team.
Rutgers also allows, on average 17 points per game. The Central Florida Knights figure to play Rutgers tough. If they do so, even to the point of having a chance to win the game outright at the end, then expect this to be a low scoring game.
This game may go over 40 but it shouldn’t go over the total of 44 ½.
Free St. Petersburg Bowl Pick
That’s the bet that I will be making, under the total of 44 ½ points.
