Categories
NCAA Football

Houston vs. Vanderbilt BBVA Compass Bowl Betting Odds & Free Pick

Cougars vs Commodores Gambling Odds

The Vanderbilt Commodores look to make school history by winning in back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history. While the Houston Cougars will look to cap off the year with an SEC scalp.

Houston Cougars (8-4) vs Vanderbilt Commodores (8-4)
When: January 4th, 2014, 1:00 PM ET
Where: Legion Field, Birmingham, Alabama
Broadcast: ESPN
Spread: Vanderbilt -2.5
O/U: 53.5
[dfads params=’groups=63740&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]

ATS Matchup Stats | *Insider* Gambling Insight!

Check out our in-house Handicapper!!! Buy Razor Ray’s NCAA FOOTBALL Picks Today!

The bad news for Vanderbilt is their starting quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels will be out for this game. The good news is senior wide receiver Jordan Matthews will still be out there running routes.

CLICK TO GRAB OUR Expert CFB Picks for 2013 NCAA FOOTBALL Betting!

I’ll put it this way, Carta-Samuels completed 193 passes and threw for 2268 yards. Matthews caught 107 passes for 1334 yards. Matthews is a real playmaker and huge reason why Vanderbilt went 8-4 this year.

The good news for Vanderbilt is Patton Robinette has played a little bit this year. He started in two games throwing 40 times, completing 31 passes for 273 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.

When looking at the Houston Cougars, they have an explosive offense, but they lost their four toughest games and aside from the one against BYU, their offense has been shut down. Against BYU they put up 46 points in a loss, but against UCF, Louisville, and Cincinnati they only managed 14, 13, and 17 points.
[soliloquy id=”82219″]
This is a game against a pretty good SEC defense. This is  a Vanderbilt team that only allowed 24.7 points per game this season and a team that went 5-1 to end the season. This has the potential to be a game where the explosive offensive team in a weaker conference may end up getting exposed by a team that has played the better competition and has more talent.

This is a tough game. We’ve seen how the American Athletic Conference teams perform against other teams across the nation. Aside from Louisville, they haven’t put up a good showing. Cincinnati the most disappointing of them all getting blown out by North Carolina.

At the same time, though, Vanderbilt lost their starting quarterback and that’s a huge blow. Overall, looking at this game, it’s a coin flip. This game could go either way. It’s tough for me to see Vanderbilt win by 3 points, but at the same time I don’t exactly trust Houston to cover the 2.5 points.

Danny’s FREE College Football Pick:

The way I see it, the best pick looks to be the under. This is a game where that Houston offense probably gets exposed a bit playing an SEC defense. And, Vanderbilt without their starting quarterback might not be able to put up many points. Heck, even with Carta-Samuels they weren’t exactly a juggernaut on offense.

So, looking at this game, the best pick, I believe is the under. 53.5 seems a little high and we could see a close, low scoring affair.

Pick: Under 53.5