College Bowl Betting – Terps Travel to So-Cal to Face Stanford in Foster Farms Bowl

Foster Farms Bowl: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara (Dec. 30, 10:00 p.m. Eastern)

Maryland Terrapins vs. Stanford Cardinal (-14, 47.5)

A disappointing season for the Stanford Cardinal will come to an end when they take on the Maryland Terrapins tomorrow in the Foster Farms Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California (10:00 p.m. Eastern).

The Cardinal, who came into the year ranked No. 11 in the nation, ended the regular season at a very pedestrian 7-5.

If the offense had been just a little more robust, the Cardinal could easily be sitting at 10-2. Stanford lost one-score games to USC (13-10), Notre Dame (17-14), and Utah (20-17 in double OT), failing to score more than 14 points during regulation time in any of the three. The Cardinal outgained both USC and Utah by wide margins, but were killed by turnovers and poor third-down play.

The loss to Utah stands out as perhaps Stanford’s worst of the season.  The Cardinal were nine-point favorites at home against the Utes, but scored just seven points through the first 60 minutes.

Unlike the offense, the Stanford defense has been sensational all year, allowing just 16.0 points per game, on average. The unit gave up more than 26 points just once this season and that was against the virtually unstoppable Oregon Ducks (45-16).

When Stanford was at 5-5 – and its bowl eligibility was still in doubt – the defense was able to keep two high-scoring teams (Cal and UCLA) under 20, allowing the Cardinal to finish at 7-5 and enter bowl season on a high-note.

Head coach David Shaw is hoping to see more of the same late-season play come Tuesday.

“I think the big thing for us is to worry about us and make sure we’re playing our best football,” said Shaw. “We want to continue doing what we started doing late in the year. … We need to play with high efficiency and have the ability to make big plays down the field.”

The Maryland Terrapins also ended the regular season with a 7-5 record.  Since late October, the Terps have alternated wins and losses. The last game of the regular season was arguably the worst for Randy Edsall’s squad, as they blew a 25-point lead at home to a mediocre Rutgers team.

“It hurts a lot, there is no doubt about that,” said coach Edsall after that game. “We accomplished some things that nobody thought we could accomplish, and it’s not going to take away from that. We get an opportunity to get to play another one, but it’s disappointing.”

Maryland doesn’t do any one thing particularly well, but is decent in all aspects of the game. The Terps looked out of place against teams that finished the year in the top-25, however, going 0-3 against Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin while getting outscored 141-46.

The Terps have an 11–12–2 bowl record. After missing post-season play in 2011 and 2012, Maryland dropped last year’s Military Bowl to Marshall (31-20).

Stanford, meanwhile, has a very similar 11-13-1 all-time bowl record. The Cardinal dropped a close one to Michigan State in last year’s Rose Bowl (24-20).

Stanford is a big 14-point favorite in the odds and the game total is at 47.5.

(Photo credit: dbking from Washington, DC (IMG_0487) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)