College Football Betting - Rice Owls vs. Houston Cougars

NCAA College Football Betting

Rice Owls (2-9 SU, 4-6-1 ATS) at Houston Cougars (9-2 SU, 7-3 ATS)
Saturday, November 28 - 8 PM ET

BetUS NCAA Football Betting Odds: HOUSTON -30, Total 74

Here are some of the NCAA football betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

• RICE has lost nine of its last 11 games SU
• RICE has played 17 of its last 25 games OVER the total
• RICE has lost its last five road games SU
• RICE has played five of its last six road games OVER the total
• HOU has covered five of its last seven games
• HOU has won six of its last seven games SU
• HOU has won its last nine home games SU

Also...

• RICE has covered four of the last five meetings
• HOU has won five of the last seven meetings SU
• HOU has won four of the last five meetings SU as the home team

Imagine a four-game set where Houston actually faltered when gaining only 423 yards! That's right - in its last four games, the Cougars have racked up totals of 750 yards against Southern Miss, 697 against Tulsa and 689 against Memphis. If not for that loss against Central Florida, in which they were almost matched in yardage by a UCF team that does not necessarily explode across the gridiron, Houston would be in the top ten today. As it is, they are 7-3 ATS in their football betting record.

Case Keenum leads the way, and he deserves very heavy consideration for the Heisman Trophy. Keenum has tossed 36 touchdown passes against just six interceptions, and he is likely to go past the 5000-yard mark in this game. In fact, with a possible Conference USA title game and a bowl game, he could actually get to 6000, and that would be astounding. He spreads it around, with three different receivers among the top 25 in receptions per game, with all of them having a chance to go over a thousand yards. They can even run it a little. This offense is sizzling.

Rice has allowed its opponents to score a point for every eleven yards they've gained, and the 40.4 points a game they've allowed is next to the bottom nationally, and has led to just four covers in football betting terms. The Owls have been coming on of late and putting forth more effort, however.

After letting everybody run roughshod over them for the first nine weeks, Rice has been much more competitive, falling by only a field goal against C-USA West co-leader SMU, then scoring wins over Tulane and UTEP. One of the keys has been the play of Nick Fanuzzi, the Alabama transfer who was given the quarterback reins and has completed 62.7% of his attempts with seven TD's in the last three games.

Fanuzzi has the ability to help Rice be competitive here. For those of you who forget last season, when Rice was 10-3 and won the Texas Bowl over Western Michigan, they still have some of the components left from that offense. Remember also that Houston is perfectly capable of going flat, as evidenced by the losses to Central Florida and UTEP. Sure, Houston would like to avenge the 56-42 loss they suffered to an Owl team that had Chase Clement, James Casey and Jarett Dillard, and I'm sure they will, but Rice can stay competitive to fit in the backdoor.

We're taking the points with Rice, the 30-point underdog inthe BetUS NCAA football betting odds.

JAY'S PLAY: RICE +30 *

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)