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rice owls vs tulsa golden hurricane-odds-picks-predictions-college football-oct 19

College Football Picks, Prediction for Rice vs Tulsa: How to Bet Short Spread

Rice vs Tulsa Odds

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Tulsa hosts Rice at Chapman Stadium in a Thursday night American Athletic Conference showdown with both teams pushing for a bowl bid.

This Golden Hurricane squad won two of their three conference games entering the bye last weekend as they enter this contest at 3-3 on the season.

Meanwhile, the Owls also enjoyed a week off with the same record, owning wins over Houston, East Carolina and Texas Southern.

Both schools should come in fresh and as healthy as they’ve been all year, which should give us a great game in the AAC.

Find a betting pick, preview and prediction below for Rice vs. Tulsa on Thursday, October 19.

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Check out our NCAAF Betting Hub for more college football previews, predictions, news and analysis.

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When Mike Bloomgren became the head coach at Rice, he brought over the old-school, Stanford power-running offense to Houston. However, the Rice offense has changed this season.

One key to the reversal was the arrival of quarterback JT Daniels. The journeyman signal-caller leads the conference in passing yards per game (305.2) and touchdown passes (15).

In fact, Daniels has already set a new career high for touchdown passes in a season, with his previous best coming all the way back in 2018 at USC.

Daniels’ primary target has been Luke McCaffrey, who has five receiving touchdowns on the year. This has been a difficult duo to stop, and Tulsa will need to focus on shutting this connection down to get a win.

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In the offseason, Tulsa made the decision to go in another direction at head coach when it hired former Ohio State offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson to lead the program.

Wilson has had a tricky start to his life as Golden Hurricane coach. But between the difficult nonconference slate and the injury to starting quarterback Braylon Braxton, sitting at 3-3 on the year is not a bad record in his debut season.

Braxton did return in the last game, and he should be in contention for a start in this one. Even without Braxton, Wilson’s solid offense has still been on display when Cardell Williams has played quarterback

This is a Tulsa team that ranks in the top 55 in both Rush Success Rate and Pass Success Rate on the year. They have also excelled at converting drives into points, ranking 35th in Finishing Drives.

On the defense, Kendarin Ray leads the AAC in tackles, racking up 56 on the season — which is even more impressive considering that Tulsa has already had its bye week.

It will be interesting to see what decision Wilson makes at quarterback, but I do expect the offense to continue to improve.

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Toggle the dropdowns below to hide or show how Rice and Tulsa match up statistically:

Rice Offense vs Tulsa Defense
Offense
Defense
Edge
Rush Success 106 50
Line Yards 121 91
Pass Success 14 121
Havoc 100 110
Finishing Drives 21 81
Quality Drives 65 79
Tulsa Offense vs Rice Defense
Offense
Defense
Edge
Rush Success 46 71
Line Yards 32 44
Pass Success 55 53
Havoc 121 63
Finishing Drives 35 57
Quality Drives 97 100
Pace of Play / Other
PFF Tackling 75 108
PFF Coverage 93 123
Special Teams SP+ 120 49
Middle 8 119 94
Seconds per Play 28.5 (96) 25.8 (50)
Rush Rate 43.6% (121) 66.0% (6)
Data via CollegeFootballData.com, SP+, Pro Football Focus and SportSource Analytics.

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When we’re this deep into the season, I like to compare a team’s season-long metrics to how that same squad stacks up over the last four games.

It’s clear to me that one team is improving, while the other is declining.

Consequently, my best bet is to back Tulsa to continue to get better under Wilson, which includes covering the spread at -3, and I would bet this to -4.

Rice’s recent stretch of games includes a loss at USF and a loss at home to Connecticut, with a win over East Carolina sandwiched between the defeats. I do not have any of those teams rated as highly as the Golden Hurricane.

Over this span, Tulsa went on the road to beat Northern Illinois and blew out Temple before covering the spread in a loss at Florida Atlantic two weeks ago. This is a much tougher slate than the Owls have faced, and Tulsa’s advanced metrics were still better than Rice’s.

The reason I like to compare these recent numbers is because the Golden Hurricane’s season-long numbers are tainted by heavy defeats to top-six teams, Washington and Oklahoma, in the nonconference slate.

If the Golden Hurricane improve even more with the return of their starting quarterback, I really like Tulsa to pick up a solid win at home in this contest and cover up to -4.

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[quickslip picktext=”Pick: Tulsa -3 (Play to -4)” linktext=”Bet the Golden Hurricane Spread Instantly at FanDuel With QuickSlip!” link=”https://switchboard.actionnetwork.com/v1/deeplink?marketId=42.400161091&selectionId=612810&context=qs-articles” linkfollow=”false” bookthumbnaillogo=”https://assets.actionnetwork.com/392973_FanDuel.png”][/quickslip]

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Brett Pund

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