Houston Football: Cougars primed for AAC showdown with Tulsa

Houston football and Tulsa kick off Week 6 action with a bang on Thursday night. Will the Cougars take down the Golden Hurricane at home to open October with a win?

Houston enters their Thursday-night showdown against Tulsa with momentum back on their side. The Cougars finished out the month of September with a 70-14 drubbing of FCS Texas Southern, rolling up five passing touchdowns and five rushing touchdowns against an overmatched Tigers squad. That began the process of recovering from their first loss of the season in Week 4 against Texas Tech.

Interestingly, despite all the hype around a defense featuring Ed Oliver in his last season before going pro, Houston has been winning this season thanks to their offense. Led by D’Eriq King at quarterback, the Cougars are currently ranked second in the country in scoring offense behind only top-ranked Alabama. Major Applewhite’s Cougars have scored at least 45 points in all four of their games so far.

Tulsa presents a great opportunity for Houston to begin rebuilding their defensive stats. The Golden Hurricane allow on average almost a field goal more than they score each game. Quarterback Luke Skipper manages to put up fewer than 180 yards per game through the air, and the Cougars will look to put pressure on him throughout the game.

Tulsa is currently next-to-last in the FBS in terms of turnovers, and against a Cougars team that has historically been among the best in the country at takeaways that mark is probably not getting any better this week.

But anything can happen when conference opponents, especially when it falls under the heading of divisional play. Here’s how you can watch the Thursday night American Athletic Conference game between Houston and Tulsa:

Date: Thursday, Oct. 4
Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
Location: Houston, TX
Venue: TDECU Stadium
TV: ESPN
Live Stream: WatchESPN | FuboTV

Keys to Victory

For the Cougars, the key on Thursday is getting Tulsa off the field as quickly as possible and turning the ball back over to their offense. As long as Houston is able to work the magic that has them among the top 15 nationally in both passing and rushing yards, there is really nothing that Tulsa can do to stop them.

That means, for the Golden Hurricane, the key to winning is stifling the Cougars offense. Beyond that, though, they need Skipper to play a near-perfect game without any turnovers. Tulsa needs to control the clock and suddenly find a rushing attack that enters October ranked 94th nationally in production on the ground.

Betting Odds

Odds courtesy of oddsshark.com

Point Spread: Houston -18
Over/Under: 71

Prediction

Houston is going to make Tulsa look silly on Thursday night in the prime-time showcase for the AAC. The Cougars will put on a master class in efficient offense and ballhawking defense, nabbing at least two interceptions from Skipper and scoring at least a half-dozen touchdowns along the way.

Applewhite’s crew won’t quite reach its season average in scoring, but they will once again eclipse the 45-point benchmark. Tulsa, meanwhile, will struggle to even get to 20 points against a Houston defense intent on restoring its dominance against a conference opponent.

Final Score: Houston 48, Tulsa 17