{"id":319658,"date":"2025-01-06T14:16:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/?p=319658"},"modified":"2025-01-06T14:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:16:58","slug":"notre-dame-vs-penn-state-best-bets-college-football-playoff-ncaaf-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/notre-dame-vs-penn-state-best-bets-college-football-playoff-ncaaf-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame vs. Penn State Orange Bowl best bets: Ride with Leonard, Fighting Irish in CFP semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Notre Dame Fighting Irish face the Penn State Nittany Lions on Thursday night with a national championship berth at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The pregame narrative:<\/strong> In the Orange Bowl, the Irish are slight favourites and I&#8217;m backing them straight up. I don&#8217;t expect a ton of offence in a game between two stellar defensive units, but Riley Leonard has my attention as an anytime TD scorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out my Notre Dame vs. Penn State best bets for the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notre Dame vs. Penn State best bets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><strong>Go to full <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northstarbets.ca\/sportsbook\/sports-hub\/american_football\/ncaaf\">college football betting markets<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"cacheembed:105327\">Embed: #105327<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Best Bet: Under 45.5 points (-110)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game total has been trimmed by a point and a half since the line opened, but I still think there&#8217;s value with the under in this matchup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notre Dame and Penn State both possess top-10 scoring defences, collectively allowing an average of 29.4 points per game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their offences are strong, too, but it&#8217;s worth noting that both defences are best at stopping the opposing team&#8217;s main offensive strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Notre Dame ranks ninth offensively in EPA per rush, according to gameonpaper.com. But Penn State&#8217;s defence ranks sixth in EPA per rush.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Penn State ranks sixth offensively in EPA per pass. But Notre Dame&#8217;s defence ranks first in EPA per pass.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Notre Dame has rushed for 190-plus yards in 10 of 14 games, averaging 6.1 yards per carry. Penn State, meanwhile, hasn&#8217;t allowed a single team to rush for 190-plus yards all season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the flip side, Penn State quarterback Drew Allar completed 67.4% of his passes this year (12th in FBS). But Notre Dame has allowed the lowest completion rate in the country (50.6%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are strength-on-strength showdowns, and I&#8217;m backing the defences to win more often than not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key stat:<\/strong> Unders are 2-0 for both Notre Dame and Penn State so far in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Quick picks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Notre Dame moneyline (-132):<\/strong> Notre Dame has the worst defeat of any CFP team, losing at home against unranked Northern Illinois. But that was <em>four<\/em> months ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, the Irish are on a 12-game win streak, and they&#8217;ve won 11 of those games by a double-digit margin. That includes a convincing 23-10 win over Georgia in the CFP quarterfinal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Penn State&#8217;s season looks great on paper &#8230; but where are its chest-thumping wins? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nittany Lions are 0-2 straight up and ATS in their only two games as underdogs this season (vs. Ohio State, vs. Oregon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, Penn State cruised through its first two CFP games. But those came in a home game against a warm-weather school playing out of its element (SMU) and a Cinderella-turned-auto-bye school that was undeserving of its seed (Boise State).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To me, Notre Dame fits into the same talent pool as Ohio State and Oregon. And Penn State hasn&#8217;t beaten a team of that calibre yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Leonard anytime TD (-121):<\/strong> Leonard has almost as many touchdowns rushing (15) as he does passing (18) this season. That&#8217;s a testament to his willingness to turn into a human battering ram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&#8217;s not quite Josh Allen-sized, but Leonard is similarly shifty \u2014 and fearless. He&#8217;s averaging 10.6 carries this season to go with 5.6 yards per rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leonard didn&#8217;t score in the CFP quarterfinal win over Georgia, but he did handle a season-high 14 carries. And he&#8217;s cashed this bet in 10 of 14 games on the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Picks made at 2:10 p.m. ET 01\/06\/2025.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Notre Dame Fighting Irish face the Penn State Nittany Lions on Thursday night with a national championship berth at stake. The pregame narrative: In the Orange Bowl, the Irish are slight favourites and I&#8217;m backing them straight up. I don&#8217;t expect a ton of offence in a game between two stellar defensive units, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":319790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sidebar_plugin_meta_block_field":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-319658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","tag-college-football-betting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Notre Dame vs. Penn State best bets: CFP semifinal | NSB<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Check out our Notre Dame vs. Penn State best bets for the Orange Bowl. 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