College football: 6 best bets to take to the bank in Week 6
2. Purdue at Penn State (-27.5)
Full disclosure, I was not in on the Penn State Nittany Lions heading into last week. As they went on the road to Maryland, I thought James Franklin’s team would be tested against an offense that looked quite potent. Instead, the Penn State defense looked absolutely elite while the offense played perhaps their best game of the 2019 season in a 59-0 road victory that was a dominant display.
However, you could’ve made the argument prior to last week that the Purdue Boilermakers would still be able to have some success against the Penn State team in terms of moving the ball. The offense had been relatively impressive for the first three weeks of the year and has averaged 29.3 points per game, even if their defense had been bad.
That has all changed since then, though. Purdue lost perhaps their two most important offensive pieces last week in a loss to Minnesota as quarterback Elijah Sindelar and wide receiver Rondale Moore both left the game due to injury. They will also both be out for this matchup on the road at Beaver Stadium on Saturday.
Subsequently, Purdue isn’t going to have much of a chance against Penn State, if they even did before. The Nittany Lions defense is going to completely suffocate an offense now led by backups and the Boilermakers defense hasn’t been able to stop anyone this season. Franklin’s team is going to have a field day and could come close to matching their 59-0 effort from last week, comfortably covering the point spread.