Champs Sports Bowl Pick – Wisconsin Badgers vs. Miami Hurricanes

The Miami Hurricanes started the 2009 NCAAF Season with more than a bang. Playing like their nickname, the Hurricanes came down upon their opponents like a deluge from the football gods.

Miami beat two ranked teams in a row, the Florida State Seminoles 38 to 34 as 6 point underdogs and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 33 to 17 as 4 point favorites. Then came Week 3 in the season where the Hurricanes came up against the Virginia Tech Hokies and Miami fell down to earth.

Tech absolutely dominated the Hurricanes 31 to 7. The Hurricanes would lose two more times: to the Clemson Tigers who finished second in the ACC Championship game and to the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Miami will be trying to beat a Wisconsin team that lost only three games this season, to Ohio State, Iowa and Northwestern. The Badgers finished 4 th in the Big Ten Conference.

Here are the college football bowl betting odds on this game.

Wisconsin Badgers +3 -110 O 58 -110
Miami Hurricanes -3 -110 U 58 -110

Below are a few online bowl wagering trends for this game.

• The Wisconsin Badgers are 1 and 6 ATS in their last 7 games versus a team with a winning record.
• The Wisconsin Badgers are 4 and 1 against the spread in their last 5 bowl games as an underdog of 3 ½ to 10 points.
• The Miami Hurricanes are 7 and 3 ATS in their last 10 bowl games.
• The Miami Hurricanes are 5 and 2 against the spread in their last 7 games versus a team with a winning record.

A lot has been made regarding how Miami’s football program is resurging. I’m not sure if that is the case. The Hurricanes lost a game this season to North Carolina that they probably should have won. They also played terribly against Virginia Tech.

Miami might be on their way back, but there is no resurging going on right now. Yes, the Hurricanes deserve to be favored against the Wisconsin Badgers, but if Miami really was back then they would have won the ACC, a conference that just flat out underperformed in 2009.

Instead, they didn’t even make it into the ACC Championship game. Are the 2009 Miami Hurricanes good enough to cover the spread against the Badgers?

That really shouldn’t be a problem for the Hurricanes who should outclass the Badgers in the Champs Sports Bowl. The Badgers’ defense, which gives up over 300 yards per game, is going to have trouble with a Miami offense that averages over 31 points per game and over 400 yards per game.

In that loss to North Carolina, the Hurricanes put up 24 points against a defense that allows only 17 per game. The Hurricanes put up 21 against an Oklahoma Sooners’ defense that allows only 13.5 points per game and put up 37 against Clemson who finished second in the ACC.

Miami can score. So can Wisconsin but Miami put up points against good defensive teams. Wisconsin didn’t do that during the regular season scoring only 13 against Ohio State and 10 against Iowa.

The Hurricanes will find a way to stop Wisconsin’s offense a few times during this game. Wisconsin has no shot at stopping the Hurricanes offense.

Miami should cover the 3 points in the sportsbook.