How Can Tulane Be A Home Underdog To Rice?

The New York Post, the official line of Prediction Thursday, presents Rice -2.5 over Tulane this morning. Seems fair. Last week’s miss was a bitter one: it is hard to accept the Green Wave scoring almost 30 points and still not covering. I could have used those seven points from the foolish fake punt Coach Scelfo.

Saturday, Tulane’s defense played pretty credibly, for a bad C-USA team (an important proviso). Sure, they allowed a ton of big plays- but you know our League- quality, daring, mobile quarterback play is hard to stop. And yes, one would like to see a response, to a killer turnover in their own end, along the lines of “stop & hold them to a field goal try” once in awhile.

But SMU couldn’t run it much from the tailback position- and the Wave generated a good pass rush- one that would have been troublesome had SMU not featured a quarterback with real elusiveness. Put it this way: Take away the awful kick return, the fake punt and Ricard’s fumble- and no way do the Mustangs get into the 30’s.

Of course, Tulane always, always, has a few terrible special teams plays and brutal Ricard turnovers- so there is no total pass to be given. But Rice is not coming in here and putting up an unmanageable number, say 40+, like they did last year.

We all know Ricard can put up devastating numbers the afternoons and evenings Tulane presents him with time to throw coupled with an opponent’s defensive secondary that has no hope of covering Tulane’s pretty decent collection of wide-outs. Last week, it took a half for Tulane to figure out a higher tempo offense was a way to keep SMU from freely substituting both a barrage of extra pass rushers from the secondary and fresh defensive linemen. With SMU robbed of those reinforcing bodies, Ricard was able to settle in to the “Yellow Submarine” and put up the sort of big numbers Tulane needs to win here.

And since Rice’s defense front is blockable, I can see Tulane scoring four touchdowns, thirty points.

So, it is back to being a wild C-USA toss-up- the second half of the SMU game writ larger. I simply can’t believe it is going to take us 2.5 quarters to get ramped up again.

Neither of these teams is demonstrably better than the other. It is a toss up- a toss up Tulane desperately needs to remain relevant through this 2006 campaign. Beats me who will win. But I like the desperation angle for Tulane. I also feel like you probably can get rich betting against Rice, on the road, as a favorite. And in a toss up, I like the free 2.5 points. I’ll opt for Tulane here- take the points.