South Alabama, with a win under their belts, will host Tulane this week and attempt to equal their win total for all of last year. South Alabama is currently an 8 point favorite at MyBookie with a total of 53.
This line was as high as -11 as recently as Monday of this week. The betting public has obviously reacted to last weeks South Alabama 32-21 win over Southern Miss in the opener.
We get the line move. Certainly, having a game under their belt along with being home this week and not having to travel and deal with the distractions is a plus. Not only that, they looked pretty good in their win last week.
Tulane Off Back to Back Winning Seasons
Tulane comes in off of back to back winning seasons including a 7-6 campaign last season and an Armed Forces Bowl win over Southern Miss. The Green Wave were very competitive last season against a pretty strong schedule which included the likes of Auburn and UCF.
Tulane must replace QB Justin McMillan. Providing there is little to no drop off at QB, this Green Wave team has the potential to once again top 7 wins. They have a solid defense, one of the best in the conference and several key skill position players in place on the offense.
Using full season data from last season with our model, we get a predicted final of Tulane 36-19. When we use only the last 7 games worth of data, the margin shrinks to Tulane 34-23.
Those model predictions confirm that South Alabama showed improvement down the stretch and their opening week win showed that improvement carried over to this year.
Our Pick
We’ll tread lightly here due to the COVID distractions along with the fact that we’d like to see how tulane looks out of the gate.
That said, we’ll watch this number. If South Alabama money continues to flow in, and this numbers reaches -7 or less, there may be some value in taking Tulane in this spot.
Tulane -7 or less.