BEST LINE: Pinnacle +14 +101

Posted at 11:00 AM EST

8:00 PM EST. Two old Big-10 rivals meet again at Happy Valley, where the Buckeyes and the Nittany Lions will once again renew their storied rivalry. Ohio State enters the contest with heightened support because of its impressive run of late of four straight wins and scoring 50 points or more in all of them. OSU quarterback J.T Barrett has been lights over that span by throwing for 17 touchdowns. That’s fantastic and you’ll have to excuse us while we crap our pants in awe of Barrett and the Buckeyes but isn’t this how OSU always roll? They schedule games against garbage opponents and proceed to blow them out. Then they play a quality opponent and lose outright as a double digit favorite and everyone is asking what the hell happened. The Buckeyes don’t have one signature win this season. When they played Va Tech in Week 2, they lost outright. We’re not saying the Buckeyes are going to lose here but it sure as hell would come as no surprise if they did.   

Penn State has earned top-10 accolades in three defensive categories: average total yards per game, average total points per game and average rushing yards given up per game. The Lions schedule hasn’t been great either but they did hold Michigan to just 18 points at the “Big “House” and they also held Northwestern to just six points. Penn State will likely make things difficult for Ohio State to get their talented rusher Ezekiel Elliot started. The Lions lead the nation in surrendering just over 60 yards per game on the ground and what that does is put exceptional pressure on a freshman quarterback being forced to ward off a threatening defense in a hostile environment. The Buckeyes have won their last three trips to State College and seven of the last nine meetings but State is getting better and those night games at Penn State provide an even greater home-field advantage. This is a classic buy-low/sell-high opportunity and we’re all over it.