Pittsburgh Panthers vs Toledo Rockets Prediction, Odds and Picks for Thursday, 12/26/24

The day after Christmas has a solid slate of college football bowl games. The first game on tap is the GameAbove Sports Bowl, featuring the 7-5 Pittsburgh Panthers out of the ACC and the 7-5 Toledo Rockets out of the MAC. Pittsburgh is currently riding a 5-game losing streak. They are the 7th team in FBS history to win their first 7 games and then lose their last 5. The Panthers final games were a tough group of opponents, and they also saw a quarterback change in that time due to injury from Eli Holstein to Nate Yarnell. Toledo finished 6th in the MAC behind a good season from quarterback Tucker Gleason, who threw for 2457 yards and 22 touchdowns. Their defense was led by defensive tackle Darius Alexander, who will miss this game as he prepares for the NFL draft.

It feels like a lifetime ago when Pittsburgh was ranked 18th in the nation with a 7-0 record. The current Panthers will go into Thursday’s bowl game without 16 reported players that are missing either due to the transfer portal or injury. The most notable player entering the transfer portal is backup quarterback Nate Yarnell. This is an issue for the Panthers for this game because they still do not know if Eli Holstein will be ready to go for this game. If Holstein can’t go, quarterback duties will belong to freshman David Lynch. Both of these teams were 1-4 against the spread in their final 5 games, so it is difficult to know what version of each team will show up. However, I feel much safer taking Toledo plus the additional points. This game will be played in Detroit, which is centered in MAC nation. The Rockets are led by a solid quarterback, and average 26.9 points per game while allowing 21.3 points per game. The Rockets could win this game outright if Holstein doesn’t play, but with that still being an unknown, I like for the Rockets to cover.

Toledo vs Pittsburgh prediction: Toledo +7 available at the time of publishing. Playable at that number.

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