Rice vs USC Odds, Picks and Predictions: Owls Stay Focused Against Huge Spread

The Lincoln Riley era begins in Southern California as the USC Trojans host the Rice Owls.

Riley will make a brief stop in the Pac-12 before the program heads to the Big Ten in 2024. After bringing in 20 transfers in the portal, the team hopes to immediately contend for a conference championship and beyond. It would be quite the turnaround after bottoming out last year with a 4-8 record.

Will the Trojans get started with a comfortable win at home over the Owls?

Check out our Rice vs. USC college football picks and predictions for Saturday, September 3 to find out. 

Rice vs USC odds

This odds widget represents the best odds available for each betting market from regulated sportsbooks.

USC opened as -35 favorites but the line has moved to -32.5 at current. The total opened at 64.5 but has been bet down to 61.5 at current.

Use the live odds widget above to track any future line movements right up until kickoff and be sure to check out the full college football odds before placing your bets.

Rice vs USC predictions

• Prediction: Rice +33 (-121)
• Prediction: Over 61 (-110)
• Best bet: Rice +33 (-121)

Predictions made on 9/1/2022 at 7:45 a.m. ET.
Click on each prediction to jump to the full analysis.

Rice vs USC game info

• Location: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA
• Date: Saturday, September 3, 2022
• Kick-off: 6:00 p.m. ET
• TV: Pac-12 Network

Rice vs USC betting preview

Weather

Monitor gametime conditions with our College football weather info.

Key injuries

Rice: None.
USC: Korey Foreman E (Questionable), Jude Wolfe TE (Out).
Find our latest College football injury reports.

Betting trend to know

USC is 1-6 ATS in its last seven games. Find more NCAA betting trends for Rice vs. USC.

Rice vs USC picks and predictions

Our side and total predictions are based upon our analysis of the line and total in this game. Our best bet is our favorite pick across all markets.

Spread analysis

Both of these teams finished with a 4-8 record a season ago. Let that sink in. That record wasn’t out of the ordinary for Mike Bloomgren and the Rice Owls, who are perennially near the bottom of the Conference USA standings. The last time the Owls had a winning record was back in 2014, and last year’s four wins were the most since 2015.

USC had a tumultuous season in which Clay Helton was fired after losing to the Stanford Cardinal in the second game of the season. After falling to a 4-8 record headlined by terrible defensive play, they got great news when Lincoln Riley surprisingly left Oklahoma, for Southern California. 

Riley amassed a 55-10 record in Norman, losing exactly two games each and every season from 2017 to 2021 — not too shabby, especially when you consider a few of those losses came in the college football playoff. Will he have the same success at USC?

Overhauling the roster was necessary after last year’s embarrassment, and that’s exactly what he did. In come superstar quarterback Caleb Williams and talented receiver Mario Williams from Oklahoma. Joining them will be 2021 Biletknikoff Award winner Jordan Addison from the Pittsburgh Panthers, who becomes the immediate go-to receiver. Oregon’s leading rusher Travis Dye joins the fray to complete what appears to be an All-Star team assembled through the portal by Riley.

USC had major deficiencies defensively last season and that will likely continue in 2022. The Owls are not the team to make them pay, however, as they averaged just 21.5 points per game, and the game plan mostly involved slamming the ball into the line of scrimmage for four yards. That type of gameplan won’t hold up against the firepower that USC possesses. 

That being said, Rice doesn’t need to run wild to cover this very large spread — they simply need to not lose by five touchdowns. The Owls have played some very tough non-conference games over the last three years (Arkansas, Houston, Wake Forest, Texas twice, Baylor) and only twice lost by five touchdowns. One of those came on a last-second pick-six against a 12-win Houston team a year ago.

This Owls team finds a way to hang around in games against good teams, so I’ll trust Bloomgren to do that yet again in Week 1.

Prediction: Rice +33 (-121 at BetRivers)

Over/Under analysis

This Trojans team should be all offense and little defense. Caleb Williams is a bonafide star at quarterback who averaged 9.1 yards per attempt as a true freshman a year ago. He also happens to be a dangerous rushing threat who ran for 442 yards and six scores.

There are a wealth of receiving options, headlined by Jordan Addison, who caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns at Pitt a year ago. Williams will be the secondary option, but the tertiary options are plentiful and include Brendan Rice, Luke Ford, Gary Bryant Jr., and Tahj Washington. Any one of those players would start at most other Power 5 programs, so this room goes six deep with impact contributors.

Will the Owls be able to contribute to this total? Quarterback Wiley Green takes over an offense coordinated by former Raider Marques Tuiasosopo. Bloomgren’s ground-and-pound offensive identity is still all over this team, so expect to see plenty of running back Ari Broussard up the middle.

The receiving room actually has more talent than outsiders might expect. Former Nebraska quarterback (and yes, Christian’s brother) Luke McCaffrey moves to wide receiver, where his athletic abilities could shine. Brad Rozner caught 55 passes for 770 yards and five scores back in 2019 but has dealt with injuries ever since. He’s expected to be healthy this season and joins Cedric Patterson III, who was second on the team in receiving a year ago, averaging 15.3 yards per reception.

It’d be a surprise if the Trojans didn’t top 45 points and I think Rice can pop in a few scores against USC’s 103rd-ranked scoring defense from a year ago.

The Over is 19-6-2 in the Owls’ last 27 non-conference games and 4-1 in their last five against the Pac-12.

Prediction: Over 61 (-110 at WynnBet)

Best bet

Rice faced a very difficult non-conference slate a year ago and played pretty well for the most part. The Owls lost 38-17 to nine-win Arkansas to open the year, then lost 44-7 to a 12-win Houston team, and got routed by Texas 58-0 in Week 3.

They actually had a 10-7 lead at halftime against a very good Arkansas team in last year’s opener, and the Houston score looks worse than it was due to a game-ending pick-six as time expired. 

The Owls have a knack for hanging tight and lost to Baylor by only eight points in 2019’s 21-13 loss. Bloomgren has managed to keep games from being too much of a blowout and that’s all that has to happen to cover this large spread. This may be the most talented Rice team in a while given the wealth of options, and Bloomgren thinks it’s the best offensive line he’s had at the school. It’s not unreasonable to think they punch in a few scores against a USC defense that really struggled last year.

Pick: Rice +33 (-121 at BetRivers)

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