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Tulane at Houston (-2.5): O/U 55.5
Let’s head over to the AAC for a Friday Night battle between Tulane and Houston.
Tulane has played one road game this season and that was at Kansas State, a 17-10 upset win over the Wildcats.
In the following week, K-State went out and beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma, while Tulane lost at home to Southern Mississippi -- College Football be like that.
As the road team against AAC conference opponents, Tulane has gone 1-7 on the ML since the start of the 2020 season and 4-4 ATS. The Green Wave have lost five-straight road games in conference play.
In this series, Houston won eight out of the last nine meetings as the home team and covered the spread seven times (77.7%, +4.36 units).
The Cougars failed to cover as -17 and -26 point favorites, winning by 7 and 12 points. This is the smallest spread for Houston as the home team in this series since 2002, per NBC’s Edge Finder.
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Houston has played tougher competition and despite Tulane’s win over Adrain Martinez and K-State, I am more than willing to fade the Green Wave in conference play, especially the conference opener.
Tulane has lost its AAC opener and conference road opener in two-straight seasons, not to mention Houston won at Tulane 40-22 last season and 49-31 the previous season in Houston.
In those two Houston wins versus Tulane, Clayton Tune tossed 607 passing yards with 5 TDs to 2 INTs.
Tulane’s Michael Pratt was sacked eight times versus Houston last season and six times in 2020, so the Green Wave have had serious issues stopping the Cougars’ pass rush.
Pratt was sacked six total times versus Kansas State (2) and Southern Mississippi (4) and Houston has 12 sacks through four games, tied for 19th in the country with Alabama, Iowa, Pitt and Penn State.
The Cougars have the 16th-best offensive third-down percentage (.500), while the Green Wave’s offense has struggled to convert third-downs (.337, 97th).
However, Tulane’s defense owns the seventh-best third-down defense in the nation (.250), but looking at the schedule, it’s no surprise going against Umass, Alcorn State, K-State and Southern Miss.
I like Houston’s advantages, the history between these two and the Cougars being the home team in this matchup.
I played Houston ML at -140 odds. This is -140 on DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM.
AAC home favorites are 41-9 on the ML (82%) versus conference opponents since 2020 and 23-5 (82%) since 2021.
Pick: Houston ML (1u)
Fantasy football guru Matthew Berry has joined the team and his two shows have you covered all season long. Spend weekdays at noon with the Fantasy Football Happy Hour and then, every Sunday at 11am getting ready for kickoff with the Fantasy Football Pregame. Watch both shows live on Peacock and catch replays for the weekday show on the NFL on NBC YouTube channel.
