The Louisville Cardinals are on the road in college football action tonight, taking on the Houston Cougars. The game is scheduled for an 8:00 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on ESPN. The college football odds for the game have the Cardinals favored by two touchdowns to pick up the victory on the road.
College Football Odds
Louisville -14.5
Total: 69 points
This was expected to be one of the games of the year, but it's lost quite a bit of its shine. Houston was securely on the college football map after upsetting Oklahoma in the opening weekend of the season, but a pair of losses to Navy and SMU have kind of derailed their season. The Cougars can get right back into consideration for a strong bowl game with an upset of Louisville tonight, especially with the game being at home.
The Cardinals have been talking about not making one of the top four spots in the college football playoff for a couple of weeks now. Their strength of schedule is nothing to be proud about as they've beaten only two teams with records over .500 and the biggest game on their schedule, at Clemson, ended up being a loss. A win here would certainly help keep the Cardinals in the conversation, but they are obviously going to need some help getting in because the committee has shown it doesn't care Louisville has the probable Heisman winner.
Lamar Jackson has put up insane numbers all season, but some would argue they've come against inferior competition. Either way, it's still a Power 5 conference and Jackson has been lights out on the field with his electric style of play. He's not the most accurate passer at 58.6 percent and he'll have to get past a poor performance against these Cougars last season.
Jackson threw for only 168 yards, ran for 16 on 12 attempts and scored twice, which seems a bit light for him. Houston also managed to turn him over three times en route to a close 34-31 win. Jackson's grown up considerably since then and he's obviously no longer a true freshman. The defense is going to have to find a way to keep him bottled up enough to give the offense a chance. Louisville leads the country at almost 50 points per game.
Houston QB Greg Ward Jr. is banged up, but he's going to give it a go tonight and look to put up some points. This has to be the one game Houston has circled on the schedule and it's a home game, so they should be fired up. Louisville is the better team here and should probably win, but Houston will put up a solid effort.
Free Pick: Houston and the points
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