Please, Not the Cougars

Sigh. I'll be honest. This Houston-Tulane tilt doesn’t strike me as a difficult pick. Houston has simply evolved into a different tier program than Tulane. The Green Wave was not in this team’s class last year- and defensively Tulane is categorically still not. Offensively, the Wave features a nice mixture of health and competence questions at quarterback- which means Matt Forte will see little relief from stacked fronts. And Houston has that off-week, which is a huge intangible at this point in the season. Imagine the terrible plans they have for the Wave!

And being honest, it is hard to sort of, well, dislike Houston. The Cougars are the perfect emblem of the sort of mixture our League actually gets from C-USA football: fun & good & creative quarterback play, big points and clever offensive game plans- all in front of snoozing crowds numbering 15,000 or so!

All of this results in Tulane being a stout 14.5 underdog in today’s New York Post. Tulane’s quarterback issues aside, I’ve never blinked once on this number. I had a real bad feeling last year. And I have a real bad feeling this year.

For one thing, I have zero confidence in the Green Wave defense. They couldn’t stop Alridge last year; Oregon couldn’t stop him this year. Add a seemingly improving, competent quarterback, an extra week to prep and an offensive squad that always seems prepared to make Tulane horrendous regardless... well, this is just a baaaaaad scene. Frankly, we are in a League that absolutely rewards touchdown makers by presenting defenses like Tulane’s- so seriously, why do we keep this team under 35-38? I can find no solace.

Therefore, for Tulane to sort of be in this thing- and that is really all that is required here to get to this number- you have to believe the offense can score some, say get into the 20s. Which sort of means you have to have confidence that Forte can get north of 130-150 yards of total offense and the quarterback has another day completing 60% of his balls, committing one turnover, that sort of day.

The problem is that I can see the Wave playing pretty well- and still getting handled on defense for a big number. And even if the defense can keep them out of the 40s- some things need to go right on offense for Tulane to approach the mid-20s. This game is problematic for Tulane, the quarterback issues make it no easier- I’ll take Houston, give 14.5 to anyone brave enough to take’em- and try to run my mark ATS to 2-0.