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2007 Sugar Bowl Preview and Pick: Notre Dame vs. LSU ]]> include($base_url . “/includes/header.htm”); ?>
| Notre Dame Fighting Irish (10-2) +9.5, o/u 55.5 vs. LSU Tigers (10-2) on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on Fox by Ultimatecapper.com Staff The Notre Dame Fighting Irish come into this game off of a 24-44 loss to USC. They had been on an 8 game winning streak before facing the Trojans. The LSU Tigers come into this game on a 6 game winning streak and are playing as well as anyone in the country. The Fighting Irish will be trying to break an 8 game bowl losing streak dating back to 1994. The Tigers, 2nd in the SEC West Division, will be making their 7th straight bowl appearance. These teams have not met since Notre Dame defeated LSU 39-36 in 1998. They had no common opponents this year. Notre Dame was 5-6 against the spread this season. LSU was 7-5 against the number this year. The Fighting Irish are led by Senior QB Brady Quinn. He is completing 63.4% of his passes and has thrown for 3,278 yards this season. He has thrown for 35 touchdowns and 5 interceptions this season. The Tigers are led by Junior QB JaMarcus Russell who has a 68.5% completion rate and has thrown for 2,797 yards this season. He has 26 touchdowns and has thrown 7 interceptions. Notre Dame averages 124 yards rushing per game and their defense allows 128 yards rushing per game. LSU is outrushing their opponents by a margin of 160-93. The Fighting Irish rank 12th in scoring offense in Division 1 (out of 119 teams) by averaging 32.4 points per game. LSU is ranked 10th in scoring offense by averaging 33.1 points per game. Notre Dame is ranked 22nd in total yards per game with 398.0 yards per game. LSU is ranked 17th with an average of 404.2 yards per game. The Fighting Irish defense is ranked 57th giving up an average 22.4 points per game. The Tigers’ defense is ranked 4th giving up an average 12.5 points per game. Notre Dame’s defense is ranked 45th in total yards by giving up an average of 320.5 yards per game. LSU is ranked 2nd giving up 238.8 yards per game. Notre Dame averages 5.8 yards per play while giving up an average of 5.2 yards per play. LSU averages 6.5 YPP while giving up 4.1 YPP. The Over/Under is 6-5 in Notre Dame games this season, 7-5 in LSU games. The Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings at USAToday.com rank the Fighting Irish #12 at 86.34. LSU ranks #4 at 92.04. The opening line on this game was LSU -9 with a total of 54.5. The line has moved up to LSU -9.5 and the total has moved up to 55.5. At the time of this writing the betting public was backing LSU by a margin of 65%-35%. The Ultimatecapper Prediction: We suggest a wager Notre Dame plus the points as we feel they will be able to put points on the board with their high octane offense. LSU 28 Notre Dame 24 |
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