Texas Bowl: Rice vs. Western Michigan Football Picks

Written December 29, 2008 by Jason Lowry

Rice Western Michigan Football

Two of college footballs smaller conferences will do battle this Tuesday when the Rice Owls take on the Western Michigan Broncos in the Texas Bowl, which is actually played in Rice’s home stadium. Rice finished the season 9-3 thanks to a 6 game winning streak to finish the season. The Owls were 7-1 in Conference USA action, but missed out on the championship game due to a tiebreaker. The Broncos also finished the season at 9-3, but finished the season with a hard loss to Ball State on the road. For those of you looking to do some NCAA football betting on the game this week, the oddsmakers have Rice 2.5 point favorites over Western Michigan at BetUS.com.

When you look at the Broncos offense, it won’t take long for you to realize that this team is one of the better passing teams you will see. The Broncos come in averaging 301 yards a game, good enough for 10th in the nation. The guy doing the damage was quarterback Tim Hiller, who was on cue all season completing nearly 67% of his passes for 3,527 yards and 34 touchdowns. Hiller has some great talent on the outside, including Jamarko Simmons who hauled in 98 passes for 1,184 and 7 scores and tight end Branden Ledbetter who had 458 yards and 6 scores. The running game isn’t the big story of this offense, but Brandon West still managed to run for 970 yards and 8 touchdowns.

The Western Michigan defense seems to think that teams are suppose to be able to throw the football. Because as good as the offense is throwing the ball, the defense lets opposing team’s throw for 249 yards of their own. This unit did do a good job of making sure all those yards didn’t turn into a ton of points, as opponents scored just 23.8 points a game. You would think that the reason for that would be this team did a great job of forcing the other team to make mistakes, but this unit forced just 18 turnovers and had just 22 sacks. The Broncos better hope they have their act together in this one, or Rice is going to score a bunch of points in this one. Bet Western Michigan Broncos +2.5 at BetUS.com.

Bad news for the Broncos defense in this one, Rice’s offense is even better throwing the football, as they come in 5th in nation at 327 yards per game through the air. All those passing yards has this team averaging 472 yards a game, and a very impressive 41 points a game. The reason for all the success on this side of the ball is Conference-USA Player of the Year Chase Clement. Clement was outstanding this season throwing for 3,812 yards with 41 touchdowns, and that wasn’t all of it, as this guy was second on the team in rushing with 621 yards and added another 11 touchdowns on the ground. With all the success Clement had throwing the football, someone had to be on the other end of things, and there were two guys that really benefited on this team. Jarett Dillard was 2nd in the nation with 104 receptions for 1,217 yards, while James Casey was the nations top receiver when it came to catching touchdowns, as Casey hauled in 79 passes for 1,224 yards and 19 touchdowns.

Just like the Broncos the Owls defense really kept this team from being exceptional this season. The Owls defense was pretty bad all season, as teams come in averaging over 466 yards of offense, which led to opponents scoring nearly 35 points a game. Luckily for this unit it forced 29 turnovers this season, or it really could have got ugly this season. This team is also fortunate to have an offense that can score with the best of them, and this game has the makeup of a shootout in Texas. Bet Rice Owls -2.5 at BetUS.com.

Lowry’s Lean on the Game: Rice -2.5
This game is going to be a bunch of offense and little bit of defense, and I am going to take the Owls simply cause they get an extra home game in this one, and they haven’t lost at home all season.

Predicted Score: Rice 44 Western Michigan 38

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