Friday night College football and we will see the UTSA Roadrunners take on the Houston Cougars at the Houston Football Stadium in Houston. The game has a start time of 9:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on ESPN U. Current Vegas odds have the Cougars listed as 10.5 point favorites, while the total is set at 56.
Analysis: This will be just the 4th year of FBS football for the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners and they come in off an 8-4 season in 2012 and a 7-5 season last year. This year HC Larry Coker will have his best team year as they return 55 lettermen, including 20 starters, which makes them the most experienced team in the nation. Tucker Carte is a senior and will look to lead the offense this year. Has the luxury of having the top 9 pass catcher back from last year, all of whom caught at least 14 passes. The running game should be decent with David Glasco returning, after running for 496 yards and 5 TDs last year and he will be running behind a very good offense line that has a whopping 143 career starts returning (2nd in nation). The defense will also return 10 starters and 14 of their top 16 tacklers from last year. The DL has all 4 starters back with all 4 being seniors and is clearly the strength of this side of the ball.
The Houston Cougars went 8-5 overall and 5-3 in the newly formed American Athletic Conference last year. The Cougars like to spread the field and throw, throw, throw. The last 2 years they have averaged in the low 30’s but this year they should get back to producing 40 ppg. John O’Korn had solid freshman year and will only be better this time around. 5 of his 6 top pass catchers are back, including Deontay Greenberry, who had 1202 yards receiving and 11 TDs last year. This team can also run the ball pretty well and their top 6 ballcarriers are back from last year. In 2012 the defense was 118 the in the Nation and allowed 36 ppg, but last year they chopped 15 ppg off of that and it was mainly due to the fact that they led the nation in takeaways, with 43. This year they have 9 starters back, including 3 players that had at least 109 tackles on the year.
Pick: Gonna have a lean to the Under in this one. Both teams bring a ton back this year on offense, but both have defenses that will be very tough as well. The Cougars defense improved last year by 15 ppg over 2012 and with 85.45 of their tackles and 9 starters back on that side they should be just as good this year. The Roadrunners allowed 26.3 ppg last year, but they have 10 starters back and a whopping 89% of their tackles (2nd in nation) from last year. This will be a tough defense this year. 19 starters are back combined on these offenses, but this game will be all about defense as both have a ton of experience back on that side of the ball and usually (Unless your Texas A&M) the defenses are ahead of the offenses early in the year. Maybe 50 points here at best and that's stretching it.
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