Southern Miss vs Houston Betting Odds
Written October 30, 2009 by Riley Martin
Southern Mississippi travels to Houston in week nine to try and knock off the #15 ranked Cougars. Both Houston and Southern Miss are riding along the top of their divisions but a loss for either team would greatly damage that teams hopes for the Conference-USA title game. It should be a very interesting game. The Golden Eagles love to load up the run while Houston is a definite passing team. Therefore, after the game Saturday, I’ve got a feeling that we’ll be talking highly about either a strong outing from the Golden Eagle secondary or the Cougar rush defense. One will prevail, so we’ll just have to wait and see. By the way, their last meeting came in 2006 in very similar circumstances. The game was played at Houston with the Cougars as 5-point favorites; Houston won 34-20. For this one, oddsmakers have Houston as 6.5-point favorites at home.
Southern Miss comes in this week riding a two game winning streak with heavy wins over Memphis and Tulane. Neither of those teams are too impressive but they’re wins nonetheless. These past two weeks have actually taught us a lot about this team though. One being that they are extremely dangerous on the ground and now average 196.4 rushing yards a game. Another being that Southern Miss is pretty good about covering spreads within the conference. They beat Memphis 36-16 and Tulane 43-6, easily covering both those 14 and 20 point spreads. However, every team has certain things that work against them, and in this matchup, I have to worry about Southern Miss’s struggles on the road; they’re 0-3 on the road this season and have only covered one of those games.
Houston comes in this game with all the stats and trends in their favor. In fact, they haven’t even lost a home game since September 29th, 2007 when they lost 37-35 to East Carolina. Star quarterback Case Keenum only makes those odds even better too as he now has 2,700 yards, 20 touchdowns and only four picks. He is the key piece and leader to this offense, which averages a little over 400 pass yards a game. The rushing game isn’t something to be laughed at either, as they average 133.4 rush yards a game. The bottom line is that Houston has got to use both sides of their offense in this game and really use the strength of their pass game to their advantage. In most instances, a good passing game leads to a good running game, and that’s definitely the case with this team.
The defensive performances from these two teams will really be the deciding factor in this game. With that said, I’m still pretty one sided on who I believe will cover the spread. As much as I want to see this game go down to the wire with a late field goal, I just don’t see it happening. Don’t get me wrong, I think it will close but just not close enough for Southern Miss to cover the spread. Houston’s offense has proven to be consistent all season, while the Golden Eagles have seemed shaky at times, especially on the road. Take the Cougars.
Riley’s Pick: Houston -6.5
Prediction: Southern Mississippi 24 Houston 37
If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:
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