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Written by Vincent Di Mello
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Bet on NCAAFThe 19th ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers (7-2) travel to Happy Valley, PA to compete with the 12th rated Penn State Nittany Lions (8-1) in their 1st meeting since 2003. The Penn State Nittany Lions have lost just one game to the Nebraska Cornhuskers at home, and that was way back in 1980. This is going to be the 1st match between these two teams as conference opponents, since this is Nebraska's 1st year in the Big Ten. Even though the Nebraska Cornhuskers did hit a bump in the road last week with a baffling home loss to a weaker challenger - the Northwestern Wildcats (4-5) - both squads are having great seasons this year.
In order to keep their conference tournament expectations alive, the Huskers will attempt to bounce back from that loss this week. They deliver an offense that averages 28 points per game to test a Nittany Lions scoring defense ranked 3rd in the nation, allowing just 12 points per game. The Nebraska rushing offense, strong as ever, averages 210 yards per game, whilst Penn State has the ranked rushing defense in the Big Ten.
Penn State was off this past week, so they've got an additional week to prepare for this game. However head coach Joe Paterno is not very happy with that.
I dont particularly like bye weeks at any time because I think you get out of the routine, said Paterno.
The record seems to back him up, because 2000 the Lions are just 5-4 in regular season games competed after one or two weeks off. Of those 9 opponents, just four of them were rated in the top 25.
Look for the Huskers to play much a lot better than they did a week ago in their loss to Northwestern. It's quite possible that they were highly anticipating this game versus Penn State. Nevertheless, any team can beat you in this conference - a hard lesson they had to learn as the newbie in the Big 10.
Nebraska is favored in this match, but Penn State will shut down the Cornhuskers defense and score only enough points to win. |
