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The 2012 Russell Athletic Bowl kicks off Friday, with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights facing the Virginia Tech Hokies. Those charged with predicting the game's outcome are coming up largely balanced.
Over at CBSsports.com, six human predictors and one computer, the Prediction Machine, gave Rutgers a 5-2 advantage. The two picking in favor of the Hokies were CBSsports.com's Bruce Feldman and the Prediction Machine.
ESPN's Will Harris, who tiered his 35 bowl picks in order of confidence, was less confident. Assigning confidence points to each bowl game, giving the most to his most confident picks, he chose Virginia Tech with 10 confidence points. He predicted the final score to be 21-10, adding:
It's hard to see either side managing even 15 first downs, so we'll opt for the team with positive momentum and a coaching advantage.
At Yahoo!, the three predictors -- Pat Forde, Graham Watson, and fan voting -- gave Virginia Tech a 2-1 edge (Forde picked Rutgers).
The 2012 Russell Athletic Bowl kicks off Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.