Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Joan C. Edwards Stadium, Huntington, WV

Stream: ESPN2

Marshall +131 over South Alabama

7:30 PM EST. Tuesday night in Huntington and defense is strictly optional. South Alabama rolls into Joan C. Edwards Stadium tonight laying -3 because its offense is putting on a fireworks show — 38.8 points per game, 220.3 rushing yards per game, and 52 and 56 points in its last two wins. What the price glosses over is the other side of those box scores: 35 and 49 points given back, and a defense that sits 131st in the country at 34.5 points allowed per game. The Jaguars give up 429 yards a night, 264.8 of it through the air, and they just let Arkansas State throw for 418 yards on them. That is not a favorite you trust on the road in a shootout with a total of 65.5, that is a team begging to get dragged into a last-possession bar fight in front of a loud home crowd.

Marshall is built to be the bar fight. The Herd are only scoring 22 a game on paper, but they throw it for 247.8 yards a contest — the exact area South Alabama can't guard — and the bye week since Oct. 10 came at the perfect time. Last out against Coastal Carolina, they dug a 27-0 hole, then Zion Turner came off the bench and went 18-of-27 for 219 yards and two scores while Judah Price finally gave them a run game, ripping off 124 yards on just 12 carries with two total touchdowns, including a 50-yard shot up the gut. Marshall actually outgained Coastal by almost 200 yards in that 27-21 loss. Clean up even half the mistakes and that passing attack, Price's fresh legs, and 10 days to prepare at home are more than enough to trade scores all night with Keenan Phillips, P.J. Martin and the Jaguars' ground crew and steal it late.

Full disclosure, the warts are real and they are ugly: Marshall is 1-5 against the spread, its turnover margin is minus-9, it coughed it up six times against Coastal, starter Carlos Del Rio-Wilson got yanked after three picks and Tony Gibson has left the QB job wide open between Del Rio-Wilson, Turner and Khalil Wilkins, and a run defense allowing 193.8 yards per game is a terrible matchup for South Alabama's rushing attack. If the Herd hand it over again, they lose, period. We're betting they don't — that the bye fixed the sloppiness, Turner earned the leash, and South Alabama's road defense does what it always does and turns this into a track meet where the home dog has just as many bullets as the favorite. In a game lined at a field goal with both defenses ranked in the 120s, +131 on the home side is the value.

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