Tonight the college football bowl season starts with the No. 25 Texas Christian University Horned Frogs (10-2) taking on the Northern Illinois Huskies (7-5) in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl to be played in Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, with kickoff at 8 p.m. (EST) and nationwide television coverage provided by ESPN2.
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Odds makers tagged the Horned Frogs the favorite with a minus 12-point chalk and a total of 47 on the game. At the time of our point-spreads.com publishing deadline, the money-line (ML) was OFF the board. The betting public likes the TCU line with 75% of the bets taking the Horned Frogs and giving the points. The majority of total bets (79%) are going on the OVER 47.
TCU has won seven straight games SU with the last four covering the line against the spread (ATS) and the OVER cashed as well in those games. The OVER also cashed in 6-of-11 of TCU’s board listed games. The Horned Frogs have not lost a game SU since an Oct. 5, 20-7 setback at Utah which followed the Frogs only other loss that was to BYU in Fort Worth on Sep. 28. The most notable win for TCU this season came against the Texas Tech Red Raiders on Sept. 16 winning 12-3 SU and covering -2 ATS.
The Huskies are winners of two in a row SU and have cashed for supporters ATS in those games including a SU win over MAC champion Central Michigan as a +3 ½-point home underdog. It should be noted that at the time of NIU’s win over UCM, the Chippewa’s had already clinched a spot in the MAC championship game. The Huskies finished the season on a winning note by shutting out Eastern Michigan 27-0 and covering the minus 10-point chalk. The UNDER cashed in 8-of-12 of the Huskies games this season.
For NIU, the most notable performance came in a loss to top-ranked Ohio State in Columbus. In that game the nations rushing leader Garret Wolfe of NIU ran for 171 yards on 26 carries and caught five passes for 114 yards and one touchdown. Wolfe finished the regular season having rushed for 1900 yards on 289 carries for a 158.3 per game average. Wolfe only needs to run for another 15 yards to tie the single-season MAC record set by former Huskie Michael Turner.
Wolfe will get his yards but the team will have a difficult time moving the ball with much consistency against the nation’s No. 4 defense of TCU. The Horned Frogs are playing at a different level than the Huskies right now with better athletes at most positions. Barring a mental letdown, TCU will cover the 12-point line. The OVER 47 looks to be a good bet also.
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