The Pitt Panthers visit the Duke Blue Devils for an ACC match up tonight.
Pitt @ Duke Kickoff is 8:05 PM
The Pitt Panthers enter this game on a hot streak. They gave won 3 of the last four games, including a major upset against UCF. The loss was a near victory at rival Penn State. Last week Pitt managed a 3 point victory at home against Delaware. The Panthers were without starting Junior QB Kenny Pickett, who will return from injury today. While senior WR Tre Tipton is out for the season with a knee injury, but he is actually WR4 on the Pitt depth chart, and losing him shouldn’t hinder the Pitt offense.
Duke also enters this game on a winning streak. After opening the season with a beat down by Alabama, they’ve won three game in a row. Duke scored over 40 points in all three games, and allowed only 13, 18 and 10 points to the opposing offenses. Last week they dismantled Virginia Tech 45-10.
This looks like it should be a close game, and Vegas agrees. The spread is trending around Duke -4 points at home with an over/under of 47.5 points.
Duke may be the favorite here, the the trends point to Pitt.
These schools have met 6 times since Pitt joined the ACC. Duke has only been victorious in 1 of them. This was the 2014 game at Heinz Field when a missed field goal in regulation by Pitt’s Chris Blewit (yes his name is Blew It), allowed Duke to steal a double over time win 51-48.
DUKE VS PITT BETTING TRENDS
- Pitt is 4-1 against the spread over the last 5 games against Duke.
- Pitt is 10-5 against the spread in their last 15 games against ACC opponents.
- Pitt is 5-1 straight up against Duke since Duke joined the ACC.
- Duke is 1-7 straight up in their last 8 October games.
- The Total has gone UNDER in 9 of Pitt’s last 13 games.
Pitt’s D is eons better than Dukes previous opponents; NC A&T, Middle Tennessee and VT.
The Panther Defense ranks 27th in total team defense on the season. This will make it hard for Duke to pile on points like they have the last three weeks.
Duke’s D ranks 42nd, and they’ve played 3 awful teams. With Kenny Pickett back in the lineup, the Panthers should be able to keep pace with the Blue Devils attack. Two weeks ago Pickett had his best game against a top 5 UCF team, leading a Pitt offense that now focused on airing it out.
UCF had not lost a regular season game since 2016 before facing Pitt.
To me the 4 point spread points to Pitt being the real favorite here. Duke is seemingly the hotter team, but I don’t think the spread accounts enough for strength of schedule (Pitt beat UCF!), the series history between these two teams, and the fact that Pickett sat out last week for Pitt.
With their starting QB in the lineup, Pitt surely would have had a more impressive win against Delaware. Duke has simply run it up against bad teams, after getting crushed week one by a great team (Alabama).
THE PICK: I’ll ride with history, and take PITT getting 4 points @ Unibet.
Taking the points feels safe here, but it was tempting to wager on Pitt to win straight up. PointsBet’s moneyline of +155 ($100 wins $155) is some real nice value compared to other sites who have Pitt under +140.
I see the line dipping to PITT +3.5 at other books, so Unibet is the best place to grab this one at the time of writing this article. If you haven’t heard of Unibet, they are one of the biggest online books in Europe, and have a great reputation there. They have awesome deposit bonuses for US players, now that they have entered the market. New players at Unibet can get a free $20 right now to try the site, with no deposit required. Free money.
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