Rice vs. SMU
Free Pick: SMU -17.5 -110 betting odds - point spreads
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On Saturday afternoon, the Rice Owls head to Dallas to tango with the bowl-hungry SMU Mustangs. HC June Jones has his Mustangs playing good football right now, while the Owls are just waiting for a disaster of a season to come to a close. This game could be another real beating.

In as brief of a statement as possible, Rice is just awful. The Owls rank 118th in points per game (14.9) and are dead last in the country in points allowed (45.5 per game). It should come as no surprise that they only have one cover one the season, and really haven’t come close to sticking within the number in their L/3 games. Yes, Rice is coming off of a bye week, but after getting beaten down 49-7 at home by a Central Florida team with very little offensive firepower, is there really any hope going into SMU? Even though the Owls have taken on several run-happy teams this year (UCF, Navy, and Tulsa most notably), the team has an awful pass defense, averaging allowing 259.9 yards per game, the 108th best mark in the land. Texas Tech’s Air Raid dropped 508 passing yards and eight passing scores on this defense. It’s only a wonder what Jones can draw up for SMU this weekend.

Regardless whether or not QB Bo Levi Mitchell is ready to go on Saturday or not, it appears as though QB Kyle Padron is ready to take the reins under center for SMU. In the first start of his career, the freshman went 20/30 for 354 yards and two TDs against Tulsa in the Mustangs’ shocking 27-14 victory over the Golden Hurricane. All of a sudden, another trip up by Houston could put SMU in the C-USA title game with four more victories, but regardless, it feels like this is a team destined to go bowling. In Year #2 of the June Jones era, the offense is starting to take shape, as his team is averaging 279.9 passing yards per game, good enough for 18th in the land. Those numbers should improve against a porous Rice ‘D’ on Saturday.

The market just hasn’t been corrected yet in SMU games. There’s a reason that the Mustangs are 5-2 ATS and are probably headed bowling. There isn’t a bowl team in America that Rice can hang with at this point, and we’re due to see one of those patented “June Jones smack downs” that we got so accustomed to seeing when he was throwing the ball all over the place at Hawaii. The home team is 11-2 ATS in the L/13 match-ups between these rivals. That’s just icing on a cake that already looks delicious. Book it!!!