2018 Sun Bowl ACC v PAC-12
The Pac-12 has had a pretty miserable bowl record of late however they will be hoping to improve this today and their first chance is in the 2018 Sun Bowl where Stanford will fancy their chances, despite not having had a great season. They are up against ACC Pittsburgh who made their conference championship, although this was more a reflection of the weakness of the Coastal Division rather than footballing prowess.
Stanford finished 8-4 but those four losses were no disgrace coming against playoff losers Notre Dame, a very good Utah and narrow ones to both Washington (heading for the Rose Bowl) & Washington State who had a nice win in the Alamo Bowl. Their wins included a nice one against Oregon and they finished the season strongly with three straight victories.
Stats wise they were mid-ranked 72nd Offensively and 79th on Defense. They like to pass the ball which offers a crumb of comfort to Pittsburg given they were 56th against the pass. The one concern for the Cardinal is that Bryce Love is joining the procession of potential high draft pick players skipping the Bowl games to get ready. Disappointing and disrespectful to their teammates and coaches, but hey money talks.
Pittsburgh finished 7-6 but will be pretty happy with this given they made the conference final and won their 1st ACC Divisional Championship. Having said that they had some credible wins including victories over Duke, Syracuse & Wake Forest; all of whom have won bowl games this year. Losing 19-14 against Notre Dame is far better than Stanford managed and beat downs by UCF, Penn State and Clemson are not terrible given they are all playing in NY6 bowls or in Clemson’s case in the National Championship.
This is a real tough one to call, had Bryce Love been playing we would have picked Stanford without hesitation, but Pittsburgh are quite capable of stopping the run and their secondary is better than average.
The oddsmakers have Stanford 3.5 point favourites. which we think is about right.
Our prediction is for Stanford to edge this one 31-24 to give the PAC-12 a badly needed bowl win.
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