Week 10 College Football: Tulane vs. Charlotte
Maybe it’s because of Halloween or maybe just how the College Football Week 10 schedule fell, but we only have one game on Thursday night this week. It will be an AAC clash between Tulane and Charlotte, as the Green Wave lay a hefty number on ESPN. Kickoff is set for 7:30 as Tulane looks to remain perfect in conference play.
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Tulane Green Wave (-16.5, 55.5) at Charlotte 49ers
Thursday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Scoring points has not been a problem for Tulane of late. After losing two games to Top 25 opponents in Kansas State and Oklahoma, the Green Wave have ripped off five straight wins and averaged 45.2 points per game in the process. The 71-point outlier against UAB certainly does skew the numbers, but they’ve eclipsed 40 points three other times.
For the most part, Tulane’s defense has played well, though North Texas had 37 points and 525 yards last time out. It is worth noting that 170 of those yards came with Tulane leading by 21 and then 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Charlotte has had a weird season. The 49ers will leave themselves no wiggle room on bowl eligibility if they lose here to fall to 3-6. They’ve beaten Rice and Gardner-Webb by a point and also humiliated East Carolina, who recently fired head coach Mike Houston. Charlotte nearly pulled a big upset last week at Memphis, as the Tigers needed a last-minute TD drive to avoid losing as a similarly-priced favorite to what Tulane is here.
That was a weird game because Charlotte scored 21 of 28 points in the fourth quarter. So, it’s hard to know if you’re going to get a competitive Charlotte team or the one that has losses by 23, 18, 38, and 34 points.
Charlotte’s season could have had a different look had Florida transfer Max Brown not gotten hurt, but he hasn’t looked sharp since returning, going 11-of-26 for 190 yards with two touchdowns and three picks. On the other hand, Deshawn Purdie hasn’t really played well enough to cement himself as the starter with a 5/2 TD/INT ratio and a 57% completion rate.
Purdie has been sacked 14 times and Charlotte has allowed 25 total sacks in nine games. Tulane’s Darian Mensah has been sacked 11 times, but the Green Wave rely heavily on the run. They have 344 rush attempts, which is nearly double the number of pass attempts, to rank eighth nationally. They are one of 21 teams with at least 20 rushing touchdowns. Charlotte has allowed 4.9 yards per carry and just over five yards per carry in conference play.
I think this game is lined pretty accurately, so I’ll call for the Over 55.5. Charlotte has had almost six yards per play in October thus far and Tulane had 80 defensive snaps last Saturday against North Texas, so they’re on a bit of a short week off a heavy workload.
Pick: Over 55.5
