Stanford Opens College Football Season in Australia vs. Rice

The college football calendar for Saturday night features the No. 14 Stanford Cardinal taking on the Rice Owls from down under in Sydney, Australia. The current line on top sportsbooks has Stanford favored by 30 points with the over/under point total sitting on 51.

Last season Stanford finished 10-3, winning their final six games including the Sun Bowl 25-23 over North Carolina. Rice was 3-9 last season. The two teams have only played once and that was last season with Stanford winning easily 41-17.

The Cardinal have a new quarterback in Keller Chryst. He is coming off knee surgery and last season threw for 905 yards, 10 touchdowns and 2 interceptions as well as rushing for 159 yards and 2 more touchdowns on the ground.

If Chryst is still bothered due to his knee surgery, the Cardinal will look to Ryan Burns who started at the beginning of last season and finished with 1151 yards passing, 5 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.

Christian McCaffrey is now in the NFL, so Stanford must replace his 1,600 yards rushing and will look to Bryce Love to do that. Last season Love rushed for 779 yards. The two top returning receivers will be Trenton Irwin and JJ Arcega-Whiteside.

Rice did not have much success in 2016 as the offense was held to 17 or fewer points in half their games played. The defense was not any better. Opposing teams scored 41 points or more in 7 of 12 games last season. Rice allowed less than 20 points only once all season.

Offensively Sam Glaesmann will start at quarterback. This game will mark his debut under center for the Owls. Last year’s leading rusher Samuel Stewart returns this season and will be joined by Austin Walter. In the air, Kylen Granson is the leading receiver returning from last season.

This will be a difficult game for Rice as last season their offense and defense was poor and much of the same is expected this season. On the other hand, Stanford starts the season ranked No. 14 in the country and is expected to push USC and Washington for the Pac-12 title.

Stanford is 7-2 against the spread in its last 9 games on neutral fields.

Rice is 5-2-1 ATS in its last 8 games played.

Prediction: Stanford will roll and roll big in this game. Lean toward Cardinal covering.