Rice 20
Marshall 0
In Huntington
UAB 21
Rice 16
In Houston
I count 25 points comparing scores and six points in home field differential from where the two games were played. 31 points. Take three points away from that for playing in Huntington on Friday. 28 points. That's four touchdowns. How can we be favored by 5.5?
I can make the opposite argument by looking at results in Ruston two weeks apart:
La Tech 37, UAB 34
Herd 35, La Tech 17
If college football outcomes were easily predicted by the transitive property, it wouldn't be a very fun sport and Vegas would be bankrupt. We clearly weren't ourselves against Rice and this week could easily be an entirely different story.*
* Please don't take this optimistic comment as a defense of Doc or an excuse for what happened against Rice.