{"id":18896,"date":"2011-10-25T20:23:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T01:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=18896"},"modified":"2011-10-25T20:23:31","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T01:23:31","slug":"college-football-picks-week-9-rice-owls-vs-houston-cougars-conference-usa-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-football-picks-week-9-rice-owls-vs-houston-cougars-conference-usa-preview-18896\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Picks Week 9: Rice Owls vs. Houston Cougars, Conference-USA Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rice Owls at No. 17 Houston Cougars
\nThursday, 10\/27\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Houston -25.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Houston -27.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 70.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 70.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"UTEP<\/a>
Houston Cougars QB Case Keenum will likely put on an offensive show Thursday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rice has been outscored 212-94 in its four road games this year and is coming off a 38-20 loss to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane as 10-point home underdogs.\u00a0 The Owls are playing an incredibly challenging schedule this year in being the only FBS school to play four non-conference opponents from BCS automatic-qualifying conferences during the 2011 campaign.\u00a0 Rice and Houston will be meeting for the 38th time and for the 13th consecutive year Thursday, posting a 1-5 record in games played inside Robertson Stadium.\u00a0 Over the last two-plus seasons, the program is 0-4 ATS as an underdog of 21.5 to 31 points.<\/p>\n

The Owls came away with a 34-31 victory in last year\u2019s meeting as 9.5-point home underdogs, out-gaining the Cougars by 92 yards.\u00a0 Rice is scoring just 22.3 points per game this season and head coach David Bailiff has yet to name a starting quarterback this week, as senior Nick Fanuzzi replaced Taylor McHargue last week.\u00a0 Fanuzzi threw for 206 yards and three touchdowns against the Cougars in 2010 and looks like the right choice.<\/p>\n

Houston is a perfect 7-0 on the season and comes in off a 63-28 win over the Marshall Thundering Herd as 24-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Cougars are 5-2 ATS on the season and have out-gained six of seven opponents.\u00a0 Quarterback Case Keenum is the leader of the team, coming in with 17,173 total yards in his career, which passed former Hawaii signal-caller Timmy Change for most offensive yards in major college football.\u00a0 He completed 24-of-28 passes for 376 yards and six touchdowns last week.\u00a0 Houston is 0-2 ATS when playing on Thursday night the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Cougars will be looking to equal their best start in school history, while they\u2019ve also scored at least 35 points in seven consecutive games.\u00a0 Houston is one of eight remaining undefeated teams and head coach Kevin Sumlin is 6-0 at Robertson Stadium when directing a ranked team.\u00a0 In fact, the program has won 19 consecutive home games as a ranked team dating back to a 14-7 loss to the Miami Hurricanes in 1980.\u00a0 Offensively, the team paces the nation in averaging 441.7 passing yards per game, while sitting 53rd in gaining 164.4 rushing yards.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Owls due to the underdog being 4-1 ATS in the last five meetings, while the Cougars are 6-8 ATS after two or more consecutive wins.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rice Owls at No. 17 Houston Cougars Thursday, 10\/27\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Houston -25.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Houston -27.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 70.5 Current Total:\u00a0 70.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Rice has been outscored 212-94 in its four road games this year and is coming off a 38-20 loss to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[2043,2558,2915,5394,5568],"class_list":["post-18896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-case-keenum","tag-conference-usa","tag-houston-cougars","tag-rice-owls","tag-robertson-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18897,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18896\/revisions\/18897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}