Houston Looks to Bounce Back Versus Tulane

The Houston Cougars will be looking to bounce back big time as the football odds online favorites against the Tulane Green Wave this Saturday.

As 3 ½ point road favorites, the Cougars laid down last week against the UCLA Bruins getting blown out of the Rose Bowl by the score of 31 to 13. Houston didn’t look to be anywhere close to the team that beat the UTEP Miners 54 to 24 only a week before.

The Cougars will once against be the football odds handicapping favorites this Saturday when the Tulane Green Wave come to town. Can Houston bounce back and bury the Green Wave on Saturday?

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Tulane Green Wave at Houston Cougars

Where: Robertson Stadium, Houston, Texas
When: September 25th, 2010 at 3:30 pm EST
TV: CBC

NCAAF Betting Lines

Tulane Green Wave +20 ½ -110
Houston Cougars -20 ½ -110

The NCAAF football trends favor the Cougars in this contest.

• The favorite is 7 and 0 ATS in the last 7 meetings between these two teams.
• The Tulane Green Wave is 0 and 7 ATS in the last 7 meetings between these two teams.
• The Houston Cougars are 5 and 1 ATS in their last 6 games following an ATS loss.
• The Tulane Green Wave are 5 and 13 ATS in their last 18 games overall.

Tulane has been horrible in their two losses so far in 2010. Sure, they beat the spread in a 27 to 13 loss to Ole Miss as 20 ½ point dogs, but they barely beat Southeast Louisiana, a sub-division team, 27 to 21 as 9-point favorites.

At first, it may be surprising that the football odds online for this game don’t give more respect to the Houston Cougars. The Cougars were rocked last week against UCLA as favorites, that’s true, but UCLA is a team from the Pac 10 and the Cougars played the Bruins on the road.

In hindsight, some football handicappers, this one included, should have seen it coming. UCLA faced Houston after getting blown out by Stanford. They weren’t going to just lie down and let the Cougars run all over them. The Tulane Green Wave might, however. Tulane just isn’t a very good team. Houston has dominated them in the past including beating the Green Wave 44 to 16 in New Orleans as 17-point favorites in 2009.

The NCAAF football game odds makers must be worried that Houston’s defense won’t be able to stop the scoring machine that is Tulane. After all, the Cougars couldn’t keep UCLA from racking up 31 points and UCLA’s offense is horrid, but Houston lost their starting QB and their backup QB against UCLA.

But that’s not the real reason that Houston is only a 20 ½ point fave in this contest. The Cougars starting QB, Case Keenum, has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the season. That, my friends, is the real reason why Houston is only favored by 20 ½ point in this game. Tulane is horrible, terrible, a god awful football team at times, but they might, just might be able to cover the 20 ½ point football expert odds spread against the suddenly suffering Houston Cougars.

Without Keenum, football handicappers can’t trust the Houston Cougars’ offense to score as many points against Tulane as it did against UTEP, 54, on Sept. 10th. The Cougars’ D has already shown that they have trouble stopping anybody after giving up 28 points to Texas State in Week 1 and 24 points to UTEP in Week 2.

The football odds makers may have given handicappers a gift with that 20 ½ point betting line. I’m picking Tulane, people. As crazy as it sounds, I’m riding the Green Wave on Saturday!

NCAAF Betting Pick: Tulane Green Wave +20 ½ -110

Get the latest college football odds for this week’s games by clicking this link!

Sources: espn.com, usatoday.com, covers.com