The College football bowl schedule continues on Thursday with the New Mexico Bowl as Hawaii meets Houston at the Toyota Stadium here in Frisco, on Thursday afternoon.
How To Watch Live Stream
New Mexico Bowl: Hawaii (4-4) vs. Houston (3-4), at Frisco, Texas, Thursday, 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Fans can watch the game live on their Amazon Fire TV, firestick, smartphones, or any other streaming device with the ESPN App. Live stream is also available at WatchESPN.com
The betting line for this game has Houston to win by 9 1/2 points, with the game’s over/under sitting at 59.5 points. ESPN’s Football Power Index is also backing the Cougars to win this game, handing them an 81.7% to succeed.
Thursday’s clash will be the second meeting between Houston and Hawaii with the Rainbow Warriors winning the previous clash on Christmas Day in the 2003 Hawaii Bowl. The game which finished 54-48 in favor of Hawaii in triple overtime, also ended with a nasty brawl at midfield.
Both these teams are hoping to close out the season on a high after the COVID-19 pandemic limited most of their travels and footballing activities.
Houston (3-4), which has had six games canceled this season because of COVID-19 concerns, comes into this game on the back of a 30-27 defeat against Memphis on Dec 12, while the team has also lost three of its past four games.
Hawaii (4-4), meanwhile, has won two of the last three outings and enters this game on the back of a 38-21 over UNLV on Dec 12. The Rainbow Warriors will now try to extend that run with another victory as they look to finish the 2020 campaign with a winning record for the third successive season. The last time they achieved this was during the 2001-04 campaigns.
Houston, meanwhile, is seeking to avoid consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 2000-02. The Cougars finished the 2001 season with a disappointing 0-11 record.
Players To Watch For Houston, Hawaii
Hawaii will look to dual-threat sophomore quarterback Chevan Cordeiro to lead the offense against Houston’s defense. Cordeiro has completed 180 of 290 passes for 1,947 yards with 11 touchdowns and six interceptions this season. Defensively, linebacker Darius Muasau, who leads is the Mountain West Conference with 11.9 tackles per game will hope to make life difficult for Houston.
The Cougars will also look to their quarterback Clayton Tune to drive the team forward.
Tune, who has completed 150 of his 247 pass attempts this season for 1,832 yards and 13 touchdowns with seven interceptions, has also rushed for 269 yards with a team-high five touchdowns.
Tune is the program’s 14th quarterback in school history with 4,000 career yards passing.
