These teams appear to be even

Oddsmakers love it when they have toss-up games like tonight’s NFL matchup between Denver and Houston.

The Broncos are 6-7 and have covered the spread in three of their last five games. The Texans are 6-7 and have covered against the spread in three of their last five games.

Denver is coached by Mike Shanahan. Houston is coached by Gary Kubiak, who was coached by Shanahan.

These two similar teams have generated plenty of line movement this week.

For example, Las Vegas Hilton sports book opened with the Broncos as 2.5-point favorites but since then, the line has changed to: even, Texans as one-point favorite, even and back to Denver as one-point favorite. All in three days.

Off-shore lines have also bounced around for the game. At Bodoglife.com, the Broncos started out as 1.5-point favorites but were listed as 1.5-point underdogs as of Wednesday.

According to Wagerline.com’s betting trend chart, the Broncos have received 65.5% of the bets against the spread (929-486) and according to theSpread.com, support for Denver is at 75%.

But based on trends, the best action for tonight’s game may be the over/under, which is listed at 47 combined points.

The over is 7-0 in the Broncos’ last seven games against a team with a losing record and the over is 5-0 in the Broncos’ last five road games.

The over is also 4-0 in the Texans’ last four games as a home underdog of less than three points and the over is 8-1 in the Texans’ last nine games in December.

College football

UCLA has won seven in a row over Brigham Young, including a 10-point victory over the Cougars earlier this season. But when the Bruins face BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 22, they will take the field as underdogs.

Since Karl Dorrell was fired as coach, oddsmakers have dropped the Bruins from 4.5-point to six-point underdogs.

lonnie.white@latimes.com