2007 Orange Bowl Preview and Pick

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons come into winners of 6 of their last 7 games. They defeated Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship by a score of 9-6.

The Louisville Cardinals come into this game on a 3 game winning streak after losing to Rutgers to eliminate them from the National Title chase.

The Demon Deacons, champions of the ACC, are in their first bowl since 2002 when they defeated Oregon.

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The Cardinals, champions of the Big East, will be making their 9th straight bowl appearance. They have lost 3 of their last 4 bowl games.

These teams have no recent matchups. They did have one common opponent. Wake Forest defeated Connecticut 24-13 and Louisville beat them by a score of 48-17.

Both teams were 8-4 against the spread this season.

The Demon Deacons are led by Freshman QB Riley Skinner. He is completing 66.1% of his passes and has thrown for 1,780 yards this season. He has thrown for 8 touchdowns and 4 interceptions this season.

The Cardinals are led by Junior QB JaMarcus Russell who has a 62.5% completion rate and has thrown for 2,738 yards this season. He has 16 touchdowns and has thrown 5 interceptions.

Wake Forest averages 153 yards rushing per game and their defense allows 104 yards rushing per game. LOUISVILLE is outrushing their opponents by a margin of 190-104.

The Demon Deacons rank 74th in scoring offense in Division 1 (out of 119 teams) by averaging 22.2 points per game. Louisville is ranked 3rd in scoring offense by averaging 38.9 points per game.

Wake Forest is ranked 98th in total yards per game with 301.2 yards per game. Louisville is ranked 3rd with an average of 476.8 yards per game.

The Demon Deacons defense is ranked 10th giving up an average 14.7 points per game. The Cardinals’ defense is ranked 19th giving up an average 16.6 points per game.

Wake Forest’s defense is ranked 39th in total yards by giving up an average of 312.2 yards per game. Louisville is ranked 41st giving up 315.3 yards per game.

Wake Forest averages 5.1 yards per play while giving up an average of 4.8 yards per play. Louisville averages 7.2 YPP while giving up 5.0 YPP.

The Over/Under is 3-9 in Wake Forest games this season, 7-5 in Louisville games.

The Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings at USAToday.com rank the Demon Deacons #30 at 79.86. Louisville ranks #5 at 91.92.

The opening line on this game was Louisville -9 with a total of 52.5. The line has moved up to Louisville -10 and the total has dropped to 52. At the time of this writing the betting public was backing Louisville by a margin of 62%-38%.

The Ultimatecapper Prediction: We anticipate Wake Forest running the ball a great deal in this game which should speed the clock up. We also think they will slow down the high powered Cardinals a bit so we are making a wager on under the total of 52.

LOUISVILLE 31 Wake Forest 14