College Football Week 1 Odds: Why Texas Will Cover Spread Against Rice

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Under normal circumstances, these are not the types of games to bet on.

Bodog lists the Texas Longhorns as 24.5 point favorites in their season opener against Rice.

These games typically all bad for betters.

The talent discrepancy is too great between the favorite and the underdog to definitively say that the underdog won't stay within the spread. That's true here, as Rice is nowhere near good enough to say for sure that they will be within 24.5 points of the Longhorns.

Conversely, the last thing on the mind of the favored team is whether or not they cover the spread. If Texas is favored by 24.5 points and gets the ball at the end of the game when they lead 28-7, are they really going to air it out to get to 35-7 and cover the point spread?

No, they aren't. They are going to run the clock out and move on to their next opponent.

Last year, Texas opened the year with a 34-17 win against Rice. That's a one-sided win, but it's not good enough to cover 2011's point spread should it occur again.

But let's not look only at that game. Instead, let's focus on the entire 2010 Texas season.

They went 5-7, winning only two league games and missed out of qualifying for a bowl game.

That's not an acceptable standard at Texas.

Now, the young team that took the field for the Longhorns in 2010 has a year of experience under their belts. More importantly, they are eager to show that 2010 was a fluke.

Texas wants its Big 12 rivals, and the rest of the country, to know that it’s going to be a powerhouse school again. They want to send a message. A huge win here would go a long way in doing that.

They’ll take advantage of a defenseless Rice team and score a lot early. The Longhorns may pull their starters as the game progresses, but the spread will be easily covered by then.

I don’t know that Texas will run up the score late, but they will get a big early lead and hold it.

Prediction: Texas-44, Rice-6