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A look at the game odds and player projections for the New Mexico Bowl
NOTE: All lines are pulled from DraftKings Sportsbook and are subject to change.
In the era of transfer portal and rampant opt-outs, predicting what might happen on the field during bowl season is often a total guessing game, measuring the weight of motivation vs. remaining rostered talent. The Horned Frogs & Ragin Cajuns are certainly impacted with diminished depth charts for Saturday’s New Mexico Bowl. TCU will most notably be without star wide receivers Jack Bech & Savion Williams who are both recovering from injuries suffered in the season finale and will turn focus to training for the Senior Bowl & NFL Draft. Louisiana will also be without two of its top pass catchers, losing WR Harvey Broussard & TE Terrance Carter who both transferred to Big 12 programs. The Cajuns will also be without its second-leading tackler with LB Carmycah Glass and his 75 tackles transferred to Houston.
While the Horned Frogs have had a disappointing season relative to its standards and the 2024 schedule, only covering the spread in five games this year, TCU has actually covered as a favorite in its last three games, with comfortable wins over Oklahoma State, Arizona, and Cincinnati. The New Mexico Bowl becomes TCU’s second-largest spread as a favorite this season, with the previous being a home loss to Houston as a 16.5-point favorite. If the Frogs are to avoid another embarrassment as a double-digit favorite the trend of success over the back half of the season must continue, despite missing several of the offensive weapons that brought on that turnaround. The line movement has been intriguing, opening with the Frogs as low as an 8.5-point favorite, climbing as high as 13.5 before a flurry of action came in on the Cajuns on Friday to drop this spread to an even ten. With the late movement, the game is now reported as a 50-50 split with equal money wagered on each side of the spread.
Note: Player projections are pulled from PrizePicks and are subject to change
Josh Hoover, Pass Yards: 291.5
JP Richardson, Receiving Yards: 72.5
Eric McAlister, Receiving Yards: 60.5
Missing Cam Cook, Savion Williams and even the running threat of backup QB Hauss Hejny, it seems TCU’s offense will revert fully to the Josh Hoover show. While Trent Battle, Jeremy Payne and the rush attack is still plenty capable of handling an appropriate work load, the Frogs will look to return to its bread and butter passing game to pick up chunks of yardage a Ragin’ Cajuns defense that has been very strong vs. the pass. With an average per-game of 100 yards under this projection for Hoover, Louisiana has not allowed a passer to cross this threshold yet this season, with the top performer being South Alabama’s Gio Lopez reaching 285 in the Jags win. McAlister looks to be the best of the Horned Frog options on the board, despite only clearing this number four times in the regular season. McAlister is the clear top beneficiary of the lost Bech & Williams production, but his number didn’t take an egregious leap up.
Ben Wooldridge, Pass Yards: 201.5
Lance LeGendre, Receiving Yards: 62.5
Elijah Davis, Rush Yards: 89.5
Kenneth Almendares, Kicking Points: 5.5
With Lou Groza Award winner Almendares on its side, the Cajuns have a distinct advantage in the special teams department. Unless the Frogs are only allowing touchdowns and Almendares is only kicking extra points, it’s hard to imagine he’s held under this number, even in the unlikely case that TCU fully thwarts whatever UL looks to do offensively. The Cajuns have a history of top end talent at the running back position, including former TCU star Emani Bailey before he transferred to the Frogs, and Davis is another in that lineage of strong runners. Davis has crossed the century mark twice this season, averaging over 80 yards per game during the regular season; given TCU’s struggles defending the run, this “demon square” good be a good shot at a higher payout. LeGendre’s number is set at exactly his per-game average and has surpassed this projection six times this season; with his two top competitors for targets already transferred out, expect LeGendre to see a large share of the Cajuns pass game and a solid opportunity to grab enough of those targets to reach this projection. This passing yardage total for Wooldridge feels overly respectful of the TCU defense; he’s surpassed this number in seven of his ten games played this season, with two of those he was just short by a handful of yards. While possible LaMareon James, Bud Clark, and the TCU secondary shut down the Cajuns, if indeed the Frogs start running away with this game as the wide point spread suggests, UL will take to the air in efforts to get back into it.
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