TCU Horned Frogs vs SMU Mustangs Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 09/21/24

We have a showdown in the Metroplex on Saturday afternoon, and we have your TCU Horned Frogs vs SMU Mustangs prediction. This game will be played in the blazing Texas afternoon sun, with a high in the mid to upper 90s, so watch for cramps, tired players, and lots of scoring opportunities. Still, this game is very simple for me: I think one of these teams is pretty darn good yet underrated, while the other team is bad but overrated. The bad team is SMU, which I will unpack below. Home field should not be enough to help them overcome their deficiencies, and TCU should come in and take this crosstown rivalry game. My TCU vs SMU best bet is TCU to cover.

So why am I so down on SMU? This is supposed to be a team with a high-powered offense. Instead, they are a fast offense, but not a good offense. They play in a hurry, but they seem to think the goal is “fast” rather than “effective”. Their speed leads to lots of penalties and mistakes, and their play calling seems very vanilla to me. (I feel like I can predict their plays from my couch, and I am no offensive mind; I’m just a dude eating a bag of Cheetos.) And their defense is gross. They barely survived week 1 against a bad Nevada team, and their vaunted offense managed only 261 yards against BYU, who is, as the kids would say, mid.

And what of TCU? This is a team that had a lot of question marks on offense coming into the season, especially at QB and O-line. Last week, against what will probably end up being a really solid UCF team, Josh Hoover threw for 402 yards and 4 TDs. They should torch the Ponies on Saturday if they can do anything close to that. Sonny Dykes has a better squad than people think, and I think we can take advantage of that for a few more weeks before everyone catches on. Give me TCU to win this one against what I think is probably a below average SMU team.

TCU vs SMU Prediction: TCU -3 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable to -6.5.

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