Rice at Houston – College Football Predictions
The Game
The moment we have all been waiting for. No, not the cancellation of the meaningless NBA regular season. It’s the battle for the BAYOU BUCKET as Rice takes on Houston. The Owls drew the short stick from the travel schedule gods and have played in Australia (blown out 62-7 by Stanford) and at 780,000 feet above sea level vs UTEP (31-14 win). Now they get to come back “home” to Houston but have to deal with the deadly Houston Cougars on their home field. Houston has only played one game due to Hurricane Harvey and it was a 17-14 win over Arizona on the road last week (a MEGALOCKS 777 STAR TOUT CRUSADER LOSER WITH NO FRIENDS DIAMOND SUPER GOLD LOCK). Do the Owls have a shot to keep this one close ? Let’s dig in.
The Details
HOUSTON -22.5 RICE (53.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Houston -27
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Houston 38 Rice 15.5
Massey Ratings Projected Score: Houston 40 Rice 17
The Match-Up
Houston offense vs Rice defense
First the issue we have. We watched the entirety of the Houston game last week, and while we trust the Houston coaching staff, it seemed like a REALLY conservative game plan. They have a really good QB in Kyle Allen who can do it all and he completed 78% of his passes in his first game action since 2015. The RB group is deep as is the WR corps. The OL looks good. They can stay balanced and pound the Owls with the running game while hopefully taking more deep shots to blow the game open.
The Owls were ripped to shreds by Stanford in their first game allowing 656 yards of total offense while showing the ability to stop absolutely nothing. Stanford is not known for being an offensive juggernaut, and as such, we see no reason to believe that the Cougars can not easily get into the 40s in this contest unless the coach engages in point shaving and runs dive plays the entire 2nd half.
Rice offense vs Houston defense
Rice could do nothing against Stanford and the Houston defense just might be better. Especially when you consider one of the BEST players in college football resides on the Houston DL (Ed Oliver). Houston just finished holding a really good running team in check (Arizona) that does a lot of hocus pocus and motion stuff to confuse you. Rice does not have the same athletes as Arizona. Nor do they have the same passing game. Redshirt freshman QB Sam Glaesmann has only completed 47% of his passes so far with 1 TD. We find it hard to believe Rice will be able to sustain much on offense. They will have to rely on short fields and/or big plays.
MEGA-MAZING MORSELS
The last battle for the BAYOU BUCKET was in 2013 and Houston came out on top by a score of 31-26……Guess who has the longest home winning streak in the FBS. ROLL TIDE ? Ohio St (sorry – too soon ?), Clemson ? NOPE. It is YOUR Houston Cougars (15).
Summary
Houston should show some improvement in their second game of the season. They are really talented all over the field and have most of the best players in the game wearing the Houston colors. Anything is possible but we feel the combination of a really good offense (bit rusty last week) and a defense with a superstar on the DL should be able to win this game very comfortably. We think they can hold Rice to around 10 points and that should make for a cover.
Official play
Houston -22.5 -106 (play up to -24) (released 8:08 pm Sept 14)