Houston Cougars vs UCF Knights Prediction, Odds and Picks for Friday, 11/07/25

Friday’s weekly Big 12 special takes us to Florida for a battle between the Houston Cougars and the UCF Golden Knights. Friday night games are crazy and unpredictable, but in this case, I think one team is far better than the other. Both are looking to rebound from losses last week. UCF lost to Baylor, 30-3, in a game that the Knights were awful. That marked their 4^th conference loss, with their only victory coming at home against West Virginia. Coincidentally, that is who beat Houston last week in a surprise upset. The Cougars were upended by the Mountaineers, a painful second conference loss that likely will ruin any hopes of a sneaky conference championship appearance. Given those results, Houston is only a narrow favorite on the road here. I am happy to hammer the heck out of that, as the Cougs are the far better team. Give me Houston -1.

The problem for Houston last week was that they turned the ball over 4 times. Nobody should expect to win like that, and especially not a team that is mostly just average offensively. But the sneaky thing here is that the Houston offense has really been developing lately as Conner Weigman has gotten more comfortable. The UCF defense is a solid unit, ranking 20^th in the nation overall in total yardage allowed, but they still gave up over 400 yards and 30 points to Baylor last week, and Baylor had a big lead early and mostly took their foot off the gas. More concerning is the Knights’ offense, which looked bland, vanilla, predictable, and ineffective last week. And that was against a terrible Baylor defense; the Houston defense is much more formidable. I just don’t see this game going the way of the Knights, even at home on a Friday night.

Houston vs UCF Prediction: Houston -1 (-110) available at the time of publication. Playable to -2.5.