We have a big slate of bowl games this week and the Tuesday slate of games is fantastic. It starts off with the TickerSmarter Birmingham Bowl at 11 AM EST. This matchup is between Houston (11-2) and Auburn (6-6). The American Athletic Conference going up against the SEC. We have a matchup between these two conferences later on in the week, but this matchup should be a very good one. Cougars vs Tigers a matchup that you will have to watch on Tuesday morning. With that being said here is my preview for the TickerSmarter Birmingham Bowl.
Houston
Houston is ranked in the top 15 in points per game this season (13th). Led by quarterback Clayton Tune who is putting up career highs this season. Tune has thrown for 3,263 passing yards to go along with a touchdown/interception ratio of 28/9. He also has completed 68.5 percent of his passes this season as well. Houston has been underwhelming since hiring Dana Holgorsen back in 2019. This season is the season that everybody thought the Cougars would be with Holgorsen as the head coach. Houston has a three headed monster in Tune, McCaskill and Dell.
Defensively for the Cougars, they haven’t been talked about enough in my opinion. 25th in the country in rushing yards allowed per game which is big in this matchup. Auburn rushes on average 164.3 rushing yards per game. The Cougars give up a just over 100 rushing yards per game. Bad news for this defense as it will be without their All-American cornerback Marcus Jones as he prepares for the NFL Draft. The Cougars will need what they call “Sack Ave” to step up mightily in this matchup against Auburn in order to win.
Auburn
Auburn looked real good at the beginning of the year as they won 6 out of their first eight games. However, they have lost four straight and they lost their starting quarterback to an injury before he decided he was going to transfer. T.J. Finley is taking over at quarterback and he hasn’t been bad, but he hasn’t been great either. This offense however is a run first offense and it is led by none other than Tank Bigsby. Bisgby has just over 1,000 yards rushing and ten touchdowns to go along with it. Since the beginning of November, Auburn’s offense has only put up over 20 points once and it was in a four overtime loss to Alabama in the Iron Bowl. They will need their offense to step up in this one.
Defensively, Auburn has very solid. However, they give up just over 240 passing yards per game. They are going to need to make Houston beat them on the ground and take away that air raid passing game the Cougars have. Their pass rush will need to be solid and with this defense only giving up 22.2 points per game, they will be a tough matchup for the Cougars.
Prediction:
Auburn is a 2.5 point favorite with the over/under set at 51.5 My lean is the under in this one, both defenses are solid but I am scared that one offense will go absolutely ballistic in this one. With that being said my official play is Houston Money Line. Getting the points is cool, but Auburn isn’t going to be in the right head space for this one. The Cougars offense will get the best of them and they will win this game outright.
-Chris Jones (@cjoneswho1212)
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