Game Analysis

Stanford (-4.5)  27   Pittsburgh  24

Pitt is a tough team to handicap, as they might be the more volatile team in the nation. The Panthers average spread decision in their 12 FBS games was 15.5 points from the line, as their 7 spread wins covered by an average of 14.9 points while their 5 spread losses to FBS teams were by an average of 16.3 points. You’d figure that a ground oriented team would be more consistent from game to game than a pass-heavy team but even Pitt’s rushing attack was highly variable – running for 8 yards per rushing play or more 4 times whiles averaging 4.7 yprp or less 6 times in 12 FBS games. Overall Pitt averaged 244 rushing yards at 6.4 yprp but it’s hard to know if they’re going to be great or worse than average in the running game in any given game. Stanford has a run defense that is 0.4 yprp better than average, and the Cardinal are 0.3 yards per pass play better than average, so they can certainly limit the Panthers’ running back if they’re having one of their down games. The math model projects 6.0 yprp, 5.4 yppp, and 356 yards at 5.8 yards per play for Pitt in this game but it could be much worse or much better than that.

Stanford’s offense will be without Bryce Love, who had an injury-plagued season and averaged just 4.5 yards per rush and the Cardinal don’t figure to be able to take advantage of a soft Panthers’ defensive front that allowed 6.0 yprp this season (although to teams that would combine to average 5.6 yprp against an average team). This game will likely be decided by how well K.J. Costello and star WR J.J. Arcega-Whiteside perform against a good Pitt secondary that was 0.8 yards per pass play better than average this season (6.1 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 6.9 yppp against an average defensive unit). Costello averaged 8.0 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow just 5.7 yppp to an average QB) and Pitt’s pass defense is only 0.2 yppp better than the average defense that the Cardinal faced this season. So, I expect Stanford to throw the ball well (7.8 yppp projected) and run at a decent clip (5.0 yprp) for a projected total of 360 yards at 6.5 yards per play.

Overall the math model favors Stanford by just 2 points, with a total of 51 points, but Pitt applies to a 15-49-3 ATS bowl situation and the Panthers higher than normal variance in performance makes whatever line value there might be less valuable. I’ll pass on this game.