Here is some football handicapping advice for the Cougars and Pirates game this weekend. I post this analysis around 10 in the morning every Friday! I consider Houston a strong contender in this game. They have had a run in with some bad luck, but I believe the Pirates will have a tough time competing with their offense.
Houston has had a couple of deceiving final scores the last two weeks, as the Cougars lost 42-72 to SMU and beat UTEP 45-35 as a 13 ½ point favorite. Houston’s 30 point loss to SMU was worse than it should have been because the Cougars were -7 in turnovers, which is a heavy dose of negative variance. Houston averaged 5.7 yppl and gave up 6.2 yppl, so they certainly weren’t as bad as the final score would indicate and starting quarterback David Piland has thrown 1 or fewer interceptions in 6 of the 8 games this season, so the Cougars aren’t really turnover prone. Last week’s 45-35 win over UTEP was actually a 45-7 blowout win that turned into a spread loss after Houston put their backup defense in and gave up 4 touchdowns. The Cougars did benefit from a +4 turnover margin but they averaged 5.8 yppl while their starting defensive unit allowed just 3.8 yppl.
The misleading results from the last two weeks appears to have given us some line value in favor of Houston. Houston’s offense is 0.1 yppl worse than average for the season but that unit has been 0.1 yppl better than average since firing their offensive coordinator after a week 1 loss to Texas State. The Cougars have been particularly good recently, scoring 35 points or more in 5 straight games, and they should continue to thrive against a sub-par East Carolina defense that’s allowed 6.0 yppl to teams that would combine to average just 5.3 yppl against an average team.
It will be tough for East Carolina to keep up with an offense that is 0.3 yppl worse than average in 7 games with Shane Carden as the starting quarterback (5.7 yppl against teams that would allow 6.0 yppl to an average team). Houston’s defense is only 0.1 yppl worse than average defensively when their first team offense is on the field, so they’re a bit better than the Pirates’ offense.
Overall my math model projects 486 yards at 6.1 yppl for Houston and 410 yards at 5.6 yppl for ECU and the Cougars have a special teams advantage. My math model gives the Cougars a 55.3% chance of covering at -3 points and I’d consider Houston a Strong Opinion at -3 or less.
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