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The 3-5 North Texas Mean Green are looking to snap a two game skid as they head to El Paso to take on the 3-4 UTEP Miners, who haven’t played a game in nearly a month.
UTEP’s season has been hit harder than most by the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve had six games postponed or canceled, including this matchup which was originally slated for Halloween night. The Miners look like a team who haven’t been able to get into any sort of rhythm. They haven’t played games in back-to-back weeks since the start of September. They give up close to 30 points per game, but when facing FBS teams it’s more like 35, including a couple blowout losses to Texas, UTSA and Charlotte. Offensively El Paso is scoring about 20 points per game, but that should go way up this week against a Mean Green defense that gives up over 500 yards and 41 points per game.
North Texas’ offense is very good however, averaging over 500 yards and 33 points per game. If the defense was even halfway decent, they’d find a lot more wins. Their rushing stats are absurd, averaging close to 230 yards and two scores each week. That potent ground attack is sure to hurt a UTEP defense that’s given up 12 touchdowns on the ground in its last three games.
Game Time/TV Channel/Streaming
You can watch North Texas vs. UTEP on Friday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m. ET on ESPN3, or you can stream it via the ESPN app with a cable or streaming service login.
Point Spread, Totals, Odds, Trends
Point spread: North Texas (-10.5) vs UTEP
Point Total: 63
Money line: North Texas (-335), UTEP (+260)
Betting splits
North Texas: (43% of handle, 44% percent of bets)
UTEP: (57% of handle, 56% percent of bets)
The Best Bet
UTEP hasn’t had any chance to get into any sort of consistent pattern, so they’ll probably come out rusty. And UNT’s defense is pretty bad, but it will probably contain the Miners for a couple quarters.
Pick: North Texas -10.5
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