Pinstripe Bowl
Yankee Stadium - Bronx, NY
Kickoff: Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET
Line: Notre Dame -14, Total: 52.5

Rutgers will get to play near its home territory at Yankee Stadium in Saturday's Pinstripe Bowl, but opens as a heavy underdog against Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish finished the season losing two of their last three games, beating BYU at home, but losing on the road to No. 8 Stanford and Pittsburgh. They covered against both BYU and Stanford to improve to 5-6-1 ATS on the season, which also sets up a positive betting trend that head coach Brian Kelly is 13-4 ATS (77%) on the road after two straight ATS wins as a coach. Notre Dame also covered in its only neutral site game of the season when it beat Arizona State on Oct. 5. Rutgers was even worse ATS this season, going 4-7-1. The Scarlet Knights had lost five in a row ATS before their season-ending 31-6 victory against South Florida that gave them bowl eligibility. They benefit from the trend that underdogs of 10.5 to 21 points, after failing to cover the spread in three out of their last four games against an opponent after covering the spread in two out of their last three games are 216-137 (61%) since 1992. These teams haven’t met since 2002, and in the last 20 years, Notre Dame has won and covered in all three meetings with wins of 62-0, 45-17 and 42-0.

Can Notre Dame cover the monster spread on Saturday? For the answer, connect to College Football Best Bets for all the StatFox Experts picks throughout the 2013-14 bowl season. The four experts finished the regular season a collective 51.1% ATS (120-115-7) on college football Best Bets, led by StatFox Dave's stellar 57% ATS (35-25-2) mark. This included a 64% ATS (23-13-2) record in his final 11 weeks. StatFox Gary was 2-1 ATS in the final week to finish 53% ATS (21-19-1) in the regular season. Gary was 56% ATS (20-16-1) in college football Best Bets since Week 3. StatFox Brian also finished strong with a 3-1 ATS mark on Best Bets in Championship Week, giving him his fourth straight winning season of college football Best Bets at 52% ATS (33-30-1). StatFox Scott is looking to repeat a huge 2012-13 bowl season, when he posted a 71% ATS mark in Best Bets (5-2-1).

Starting QB Gary Nova (2,159 pass yards, 7.1 YPA, 18 TD, 14 INT) was benched for Rutgers and hasn’t played the past two games. Taking over for him has been Chas Dodd (712 pass yards, 6.8 YPA, 2 TD, 3 INT), who is coming off his best game of the year when he completed 19-of-24 passes for 179 yards, 2 TD and 0 INT in the win over South Florida. The Scarlet Knights (242 pass YPG, 53rd in FBS) have a balanced receiving corps with four guys who have at least 450 receiving yards. Junior TE Tyler Kroft leads the crew with 530 yards while sophomore WR Leonte Carroo paces the unit with nine touchdowns. On the ground, Notre Dame will have to account for junior RB Paul James, who has 833 yards despite missing four games in the middle of the season. He averages 5.7 YPC and has nine touchdowns, including two versus USF. While the Rutgers ground game ranks 98th in the nation at 134 YPG, its defense is quite good against the run in allowing only 95 YPG on 3.0 YPC. But the Knights give up a whopping 313 passing yards per game on 64.2% completions. And although Rutgers has six games with multiple takeaways, the team also has four games with no forced turnovers, including two of the past three.

Notre Dame has had quarterback issues of its own with Tommy Rees completing only 53.7% of his passes. He’s thrown for 2,938 yards (8.0 YPA) and 27 TD, but also has 13 INT, including seven picks in the past four games. His No. 1 target is senior WR TJ Jones (1,042 rec. yards, 9 TD) while junior WR DaVaris Daniels (720 rec. yards, 7 TD) is also a big-play threat and has caught a touchdown pass in three straight games. Both receivers average more than 15 yards per catch. Junior RBs Cam McDaniel (625 rush yards, 4.6 YPC, 3 TD) and George Atkinson III (555 rush yards, 6.0 YPC, 3 TD) form a respectable backfield duo, though they rely much more heavily on Rees’ arm with 250 passing YPG (47th in nation) than the ground game (149 rushing YPG, 82nd in FBS). Notre Dame’s defense gives up 22.9 PPG (31st in nation), on 175 rushing YPG (4.2 YPC) and 202 passing YPG (6.4 YPA) on 61% completions. These numbers would be much better if the team had forced more turnovers this season, compiling only 13 takeaways in 12 games.