New Mexico Bowl Betting: Houston The Favorite By 2 TDs

• The New Mexico Bowl features the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors taking on the Houston Cougars.
• Hawaii enters this game as a serious underdog, and the spread has been moving away from them as well.
• Houston has -500 odds to win the game on the moneyline.

LAS VEGAS - The best time of the year is finally here - college football bowl season!

During the course of the next several days, bowl games will be the main sporting attraction, which means it's time to break down a matchup.

Thursday’s featured bowl game is the New Mexico Bowl, which pits Hawaii against Houston in an intriguing matchup.

New Mexico Bowl Odds

• Hawaii +350
• Houston -500

Right off the bat, it’s clear that Houston is favored, with -500 odds to win the game on the moneyline. Houston enters this game with a 3-4 record overall on the season due to COVID-19.

Hawaii, on the other hand, finished the season at 4-4.

On most online sportsbooks, the spread opened at Houston -11.5, which is a pretty tough betting spread to analyze. However, the spread has been moving - it is currently at Houston -13.0 on Bovada, and will likely continue to move up until game time.

This game kicks off at 3:00 p.m., providing a Christmas Eve day treat.

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors

Hawaii have been struggling against the spread recently, with a 2-5 ATS record in their last seven games. In addition, historically, Hawaii has not been great at covering spreads against teams with losing records.

For example, they have a 15-36 record against the spread the last 51 times they faced off against teams with losing records.

One thing Hawaii has going for them in terms of recent trends, however, is a propensity to hit the Under.

The Under has hit four times in Hawaii’s last five games overall, and four times in their last five neutral site underdog games as well. For the New Mexioo Bowl, the Over/Under line is set at 59.0, which means there’s a lot of room for it to hit.

Houston Cougars

Houston enters this matchup on a big time losing streak against the spread in the month of December.

The Cougars are 0-4 ATS in their last four December matchups, which is not a good place to be when you’re looking to cover an ever-increasing spread.

While most of Hawaii’s trends indicate that the Under is a solid play, Houston is a team that hits the Over a fair bit. In Houston’s last six bowl games, the Over has hit five times, and in their last 10 December games, the Over has hit seven times.

Head to Head Matchup

These two teams have never played each other before, so there is not any trendline data to examine for the matchup.

However, one can compare statistical indicators between the two teams. Houston finished 38th in the FBS in terms of points scored per game, putting up 32.8 points per game, while they finished 89th in terms of defensive points per game, giving up 32.6.

In other words, they have a very solid offense, but however solid their offense is, their defense is equally porous.

Hawaii, on the other hand, was a medium to poor team in both of those categories.

They scored 26 points per game (84th in FBS), and allowed 29.2 (64th in FBS).

For the season, Hawaii allowed more points than they scored, which makes their 4-4 record almost impressive in context. Given these numbers, it’s not hard to see why Houston is the betting favorite - they’re the team that will be fielding the best unit in the game.

This matchup is a solid one, and college football bowl betting players can look to find the best lines as they continue to move.

It wouldn’t be shocking to see this matchup settle at around Houston -14.0 by the time of kickoff. Good luck to the teams participating, and to those betting on the New Mexico Bowl!