Sportsinteraction

Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Williams Stadium (VA), Lynchburg, VA

Stream: ESPNU

Sam Houston +13½ -110 over Liberty

7:00 PM EST. Liberty has won four straight, sits at 4-1, and is rapidly becoming everybody's favorite team in Conference USA. The Flames are getting plenty of respect, their offense is rolling, and the betting market has apparently decided that Sam Houston should be grateful just to receive an invitation to Lynchburg. Not so fast.

Before we start fitting Liberty for its conference championship rings, perhaps we should examine what's behind that four-game winning streak. The Flames have beaten Gardner-Webb, Ball State, Coastal Carolina and Delaware. Gardner-Webb is an FCS program that had just fired its coach, Ball State is dreadful, Coastal Carolina isn't exactly frightening anybody, and Delaware was reduced to using backup quarterbacks last week. Congratulations on the winning streak, but let's not confuse that collection with the SEC West.

Liberty deserves credit for its competitive 20-13 loss to James Madison in the opener. The Dukes have subsequently established themselves as a very good football team, and that result looks considerably better today than it did five weeks ago. But one respectable loss doesn't automatically make Liberty two touchdowns better than everybody else in its conference.

Sam Houston's 1-3 record isn't particularly attractive, either. The Bearkats lost to Troy and Tulsa before running Nicholls off the field, 59-0. Then came a 49-14 loss at Texas Tech, a final score that makes it appear Sam Houston was escorted out of Lubbock by security.

The actual game tells a somewhat different story.

Sam Houston trailed Texas Tech just 21-14 at halftime before quarterback Landyn Locke threw two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns. That's 14 points handed directly to the Red Raiders, and those mistakes transformed a competitive game into an apparent massacre. Nobody is suggesting the Bearkats were the better team, but there's a substantial difference between getting physically overwhelmed for four quarters and contributing to your own destruction.

Locke has also shown improvement directing Phil Longo's pass-heavy offense. Sam Houston throws the football on more than 60% of its plays, an approach that creates opportunities to move the chains and manufacture points without necessarily dominating the line of scrimmage. The Bearkats aren't an offensive powerhouse, but they're more capable than their record and the Texas Tech final score suggest.

There's another important distinction between these teams. Liberty has been collecting victories against manageable opposition, while Sam Houston has already faced a substantially more demanding test against a nationally ranked Texas Tech team. Those experiences don't always translate into immediate victories, but they can make a conference opponent look considerably less intimidating.

And Sam Houston comes into this game off a bye week. The Bearkats have had additional time to prepare, correct mistakes and work on an offense that has shown flashes of improvement. Liberty, meanwhile, played at Delaware last Friday and now returns home on a short week.

The Flames are unquestionably the better team, but that's hardly a revelation. The question is whether they're nearly two touchdowns better than Sam Houston, and that's where the price becomes difficult to justify.

Liberty's four-game winning streak has elevated its market value, while Sam Houston's ugly record and 35-point loss at Texas Tech have pushed the Bearkats in the opposite direction. That's precisely the kind of perception gap that creates opportunities.

The Flames may be the class of Conference USA, but being the best team in a mediocre conference doesn't automatically entitle you to a 13½-point premium against every opponent.

Sam Houston is better than its record suggests, and Liberty's recent results have been achieved against a collection of opponents that wouldn't exactly strike fear into a decent high school marching band.

Sportsinteraction