On Thursday, the Sun Belt Conference will be on display as the Texas State Bobcats head out on the road to take on the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. Both teams come into this match-up with losing records. The winner will get a crucial conference win, while the loser starts thinking about their holiday plans for the end of the year. Kickoff at Cajun Field is at 7:30 PM ET.
Louisiana (2-3, 1-1 Sun Belt) has owned this series, since they started playing together. ULL is 4-0 against the Bobcats all-time and beat them badly last year 27-3. This year doesn’t look like it will be much different as the Bobcats are the Sun Belt conference doormat.
Texas State (1-5, 0-2 Sun Belt) has yet to win a conference game this year. Their lone victory of the season came in their opening week as they played against Houston Baptist. And no, it wasn’t against a high school team. Although, they might as well have been. Since then, the Bobcats have lost 5 straight games by a combined score of 191 to 67. Can the Bobcats upset ULL and get their first Sun Belt conference win of the season?
The spread opened with ULL favored by 14 points. It currently sits at 14.5 points in favor of the Ragin’ Cajuns.
As mentioned, ULL is 4-0 against the Bobcats and have outscored them 158 to 64. With that being said, there should be no reason to think that the Ragin’ Cajuns won’t do the same this week. The Bobcats are just a bad team. There really is no other way to put it. They give up 33 points per game and only score 14.5 points per game. The only silver lining for them this week is that they’re playing a team that gives up 46 points per game. That means the Bobcats have a chance to score more than 14 points, but they have no chance of winning this one.
ULL might not be the Sun Belt’s best team, but they’re clearly much better than the Bobcats. Although they’re giving up 46 ppg, they are scoring 37 points per game. Also, they did play against 2 of college football’s top scoring offenses in Tulsa and Texas A&M this year, which they promptly allowed 111 points.
Both the Bobcats and ULL have played the Sun Belt’s top team ULM and the Ragin’ Cajuns fared better than the Bobcats. ULM beat TXST 45-27, but needed to go into double overtime to defeat ULL 56-50.
TXST is 0-2 on the road this year and have been outscored 82-13. ULL is 1-1 at home and have put up over 100 points in those two games. I expect that ULL will put up at least the 33.7 ppg that TXST allows. In fact, this game should be a blowout reminiscent of their 2014 game where ULL won 34-10.
Look for ULL quarterback Jordan Davis to have his best game of the season and get at least 250 passing yards and a couple of passing TDs. Trey Ragas will eclipse his 90 yards per game average and easily surpass the 100 yard mark in this one as the Bobcats allow 143 rushing yards per game. I see this game turning out as a blowout win for ULL 38-17.
The Bobcats are 3-7 ATS in their last 10 games, 4-10 ATS in their last 14 road games, 2-7 ATS versus teams with a losing record, 5-10 ATS after playing a conference opponent the week before, and 7-16 ATS as an underdog.