For the longest time, the Civil War was the biggest game of the season for many Oregon Ducks fans, who were exhilarated by the team’s longstanding rivalry with the Oregon State Beavers. But now that the Ducks are in the Big Ten, they have even bigger fish to fry with the Penn State Nittany Lions.
This year, Oregon gets the honor of playing the two teams consecutively. They just completed an impressive 41-7 throttling of the Beavers, but bettors are still giving the edge to Penn State to start the week. The Nittany Lions open as -3.5-point favorites and have better moneyline odds, currently sitting at -170.
This means that the Ducks are the underdogs for the first time this season with +140 moneyline odds according to FanDuel Sportsbook. The over/under for this massive battle is set at 48.5, which means bettors are expecting this to be a tightly contested defensive game.
Oregon is 2-2 against the spread this year, just narrowly missing the mark these last two games, but this week, a failure to cover the spread means a loss. The Ducks will be in hostile territory next Saturday as they try to take down the No. 2 ranked team in the country.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Oregon Ducks open as slight underdogs vs. Penn State Nittany Lions
