2018 Pinstripe Bowl Big Ten v ACC
The 2018 Pinstripe Bowl could easily be renamed the disappointment bowl given the pre-season hype surrounding tonight’s competitors. In the opening AP rankings, Wisconsin was ranked number 4 (a playoff place) while Miami was No 8 – usually, enough for an NY6 Bowl place. Fifteen weeks later both had barely limped in to Bowl eligibility with matching 7-5 records and had long since tumbled into ranking obscurity. Anyway, their reward for having (by their standards) mediocre seasons is a trip to Yankee Stadium.
Wisconsin started quite well but were left ruing a costly interception in the BYU game which they lost despite pretty much dominating. They moved on to 4-1 but couldn’t get a win against the stronger conference rivals losing to Michigan, Northwestern & Penn State, before a big loss to Minnesota in their final game put pay to any faint hopes they had of sneaking back into the top 25. Win wise they can point to solid performances on the road against Iowa (always a hard team to beat) and a Triple Overtime win over the up and down Purdue. One bright spot for them is that they finished 7th in rushing offence which could stand them in good stead as we expect this to be a bit of a low scoring affair. One thing is for certain they will have to rely heavily on the run as Miami’s defence ranked number one against the pass.
Miami intended to show they meant business from the start but bit off a bit more than they could chew in scheduling SEC side LSU in their opener. That loss was followed by a string of cupcake wins to move to 4-1. This included setting a new school record with a 77-0 win over Savannah State; eclipsing their previous best win over – yes you guessed it Savanah state back in 2013. They edged to 5-1 with a one-point win over a Jimbo Fisher-less Florida State, but then the wheels fell off with four consecutive losses. They finished the season well though with wins over an ok Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh who made it to the ACC title game.
This is a really hard match up to call but Miami’s defence matches up well against Wisconsin’s offensive strengths and we rate the ACC as being the stronger conference overall this year. Miami have the overall number 2 defence, and will know what to expect from a run-heavy team. Overall we expect Miami to cover the spread.
Our prediction is for Miami to win 21-16
For those who like to keep track of these things, we are 9-8 so far in our predictions.
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