College Football Odds - Texas Bowl

What: Texas Bowl
Who: Texas Christian (7-5) vs. Houston (8-4)
Where: Reliant Stadium, Houston
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
WagerWeb.com line: TCU -6 (57.5)

Unless you live in the Lone Star State, it may be difficult to be too fired up about Friday night's matchup of TCU from the Mountain West and Conference USA's Houston Cougars.

Houston is one of a few bowl teams that will be playing without their regular season coach. The Cougars lost Art Briles in late November when he left to replace Guy Morriss at Baylor. Kevin Sumlin was hired as Briles' permanent replacement two weeks ago, but for now he's still Oklahoma's offensive co-coordinator and Chris Thurmond, the secondary coach, is in charge on an interim basis.

"Players and coaches are expected to win no matter when it is," Thurmond said. "We aren't looking back.

We are just trying to get ourselves in a position to beat TCU. We don't talk about that. We only talk about things that give us a chance to play well in this game."

TCU is looking to win a third consecutive bowl and is playing in this bowl for the second time in three seasons after beating Iowa State in 2005 when it was known as the Houston Bowl. It is the Horned Frogs' ninth bowl appearance in the last 10 years, while the Cougars seek their first postseason win since beating Navy 35-0 in the Garden State Bowl in 1980.

Houston does it with offense: averaging 513.2 yards and 36.3 points per game. The star is running back Anthony Alridge, who has rushed for 14 TDs and 1,568 yards, an average of 130.7 yards per game. Alridge is 190 yards from setting Houston's season rushing record.

QB Case Keenum was named Conference USA's freshman of the year. He passed for 1,924 yards and 13 TDs despite sharing time with Blake Joseph. WR Donnie Avery has 81 catches for 1,336 yards and 7 TDs.

TCU has allowed 109.4 yards per game on the ground (18th in Division I) but has allowed 12 or fewer points in five of its seven wins. And TCU won three of its last four games.

On offense, the Horned Frogs are led by redshirt freshman QB Andy Dalton. He holds TCU's freshman passing mark with 2,210 yards but has as many interceptions (10) as TD passes. Tailback Joseph Turner came on late in the year, and a ground game could be important for the Frogs: They are 5-0 when rushing for more yards than passing.

Houston won the first eight meetings in a series that began in 1976, but TCU has claimed the last seven.

Prediction: TCU was ranked to start the year and all of its losses but one was by seven points or less.

Hard to see how Houston will function as well minus Briles.
TCU 24-17.