Georgia vs Kentucky: Las Vegas Still Trusts Bulldogs vs SEC in Week 8

Note: An earlier version of this preview erroneously implied that Georgia was visiting Kentucky for Saturday’s game. It has been corrected. I am also convinced that UGA is playing every game at home this season, probably why the Gamecocks tore off pieces of hedges last weekend just to try to create variety in the scenery. 

College football seasons have a way of sneaking right past everyone.

In Weeks 2 and 3, pundits are just trying to make heads or tails out of an extremely small sample size of (mostly out-of-conference) outcomes. Given a scenario in which College Football Playoff favorites like Clemson, Alabama, and Oklahoma aren’t losing games, pollsters (and gamblers) hedge on what they learned last season and hope overall trends will continue until they can figure some things out.

Before you can say “the previous play is under review,” it’s October, and a clearer glimpse of the national-title picture begins to come into focus as flawed teams are eliminated from top-4 consideration.

Southern Cal, UCF, Florida State, Florida, Texas, and Michigan are just a handful of marquee programs which must do something special from here-out to entertain a playoff bid or (in some cases) even an invitation to a worthwhile bowl game in the 2019-20 postseason.

We’ve admired Top 25 teams which were not considered Clemson or Alabama’s equal when the season began but who are now threatening to ascend to an elite level. Wisconsin may have the most reliable (and physical) running game of any Big Ten school in 2019…and an amazing Badger defense has pitched shut-outs in 4 out of 6 games en route to a 6-0 record. Ohio State is looking pretty darn good too, perhaps making sure (if we’re allowed to speculate into late autumn at this point) that the winner of the Big Ten Championship Game will get an invite to the 4-team CFP bracket.

All pretty standard stuff – FBS contenders rise while pretenders fall by the wayside.

But then there’s that 1^st bell-ringing upset of the year, in which a highly-ranked, prohibitive favorite takes a tumble. Often, the David vs Goliath bouts we think may produce surprising outcomes turn into total snoozers instead, but the so-called “stunning” upsets seem to just happen without many analysts calling for them in advance (though some like to act as though they’d called them in hindsight).

Perhaps “shocking” and “stunning” are the wrong words – we know Top 5 upsets are bound to happen. They’re just always hard to fathom when they do.

Georgia appeared to be home free for a couple weeks after defeating Notre Dame 23-17 between the hedges on 9/21. Perhaps the Bulldogs made the mistake of looking ahead to a demanding finishing stretch that will include scrums vs Florida, Mizzou, Auburn, and Texas A&M all in a row.

In any case, something caused Kirby Smart’s charges to come out flat in Week 7. UGA fell behind visiting South Carolina in the 1^st half and couldn’t do more than tie the score, eventually losing to the formerly 2-3 Gamecocks in a bizarre and dramatic OT finish.

How is Las Vegas reacting to the Georgia loss? In a word…it isn’t. The “Dawgs” are an epic 1-to-25 moneyline favorite to beat visiting Kentucky this weekend, and a point spread that began at UGA (-26) hasn’t shrunk very much over a few days of betting action.

Clearly, at least half of the gambling public thinks USC (the southeast’s “USC”) has done little more than anger Kirby Smart’s team into clobbering a different SEC opponent this Saturday.

South Carolina is not a dynamo, but handicappers are treating the Week 7 loss like an anomaly for Georgia. Are they correct?

I’ll try to answer that question on scroll…but let’s begin with a Friday night kickoff in this week’s whirl-around of forecasts on college pigskin.

Pittsburgh Panthers at Syracuse Orange (Friday Night)

Pitt looks like potentially a stronger team than the ’18 version so far…and that squad won the ACC Coastal.

In fact, few teams have been in – or prevailed in – as many high-profile kickoffs as Pat Narduzzi’s charges over the last month. The Panthers stand at 4-2 with only a bad start vs Virginia and a close-shave loss to Penn State marring a new campaign.

Syracuse has been troubling its fans through 6 games, going 3-3 after losing to the only 2 comparable programs that the team has faced. The only hopeful sign is that the most-recent Power-5 loss was at least a closer game than the 63-20 drubbing at the hands of Maryland earlier this year. But gamblers seem to remember the Maryland-over-Syracuse blow-out more than other outcomes. Pittsburgh opened as less than a field-goal favorite on the spread against the host Orange in upstate New York this Friday night, but is now a more-substantial (-3.5) point-giver.

Dino Babers’ offense has been pretty good against lower-tier programs and rotten against the Power-5 this season. Led by workmanlike QB Tommy Devito, the Orangemen ran the pigskin well against Liberty, scored 2 touchdowns in 3 out of 4 quarters against Western Michigan, and put up 41 points on Holy Cross despite pedestrian rushing numbers from most of the offensive backfield. But there’s little excuse for last week’s dead-in-the-water 3 quarters vs NC State. The 16-10 final was deceptive considering that a better team would have destroyed Syracuse a lot sooner.

It takes a big, athletic, well-oiled OL to run the rock vs Pitt – Ohio and Delaware combined for less than 100 rushing yards in 8 quarters against the Panthers. QB Kenny Pickett returned from injury to lead Pittsburgh to a 33-30 win at Duke last Saturday, and should be able to locate receivers like Taysir Mack against a Syracuse defense which has mostly underwhelmed.

Pick: Pittsburgh ATS

Wisconsin Badgers at Illinois Fighting Illini

This game isn’t likely to be a barn-burner. But it’s about time to check-in on the Wisconsin Badgers, who appear as if they might have the best defense and the best ground game in the Big Ten. That’s a formula for championships on all levels of pigskin despite what Arena-football fans like Colin Cowherd, Pete Prisco, and Boomer Esiason have to say.

CFB odds-makers aren’t ready to crown Wisconsin just yet, taking only 4 touchdowns from the Badgers in Saturday’s upcoming scrum at Illinois. But gamblers have other ideas, widening the point spread to more than 30 points as a perceived mismatch looms in Champagne.

The Illini have scored points against good defenses, but there’s a question as to whether circumstances have allowed Illinois quarterback Matt Robinson to put together drives in “early garbage time.” For instance, Lovie Smith’s squad fell behind 28-7 to Michigan, then scored 10 points on a less-intense Wolverine defense in the 3rd quarter before losing by 17. Illinois is losing the line-of-scrimmage badly against every Power-5 opponent it faces. That’s bad news when you’re hosting Wisconsin.

Pick: Wisconsin ATS

Kentucky Wildcats at Georgia Bulldogs

A line that hasn’t sat steady throughout 72 hours of gambling action is the Over/Under total, which has fallen to just (48) points after opening a couple of ticks above the 50-mark. It’s not a shock to see a total falling for a marquee contest this season – the trend has appeared on all levels including the NFL. But what is convincing speculators that these SEC squads will have a lower-scoring scrum than bookmakers think?

Georgia hasn’t gotten to 25 points in 2 of its last 3 games, though there have been extenuating circumstances. Notre Dame hosted the Bulldogs on 9/21 and played bravely on defense, nearly coming back in which turned into a tense 23-17 victory for UGA. Georgia went on to clobber Tennessee in the next outing – there was no issue with the offense as Brian Herrien shined at tailback and QB Jake Fromm only misfired on 4 of 29 passes.

Last week’s performance was much more worrying, and would have been so even if the Dawgs had managed to prevail in OT. UGA’s defense allowed WR Bryan Edwards of the Gamecocks (mostly) open for 6 catches, but still didn’t allow more than 300 yards or 10 offensive points in regulation. It was the offense and special teams which could not respond after South Carolina went up 17-10 at halftime, as the popular PK Rodrigo Blankenship missed 2 of 3 FG attempts (including a try that would have extended the overtime) and Fromm turned the pigskin over a crushing 4 times.

Kentucky clearly isn’t on the same level as Alabama, Georgia, or Florida this season, despite UK having risen to challenge the cream of the SEC in 2018. The Wildcats were already on a 3-game losing skid without injured QB Terry Wilson Jr. and things got even worse when backup Sawyer Smith had to sit out against Arkansas, though the squad was able to defeat the Razorbacks 24-20 by defending everyone on the field except opposing RB Rakeem Boyd.

This Saturday’s contest at Sanford Stadium is likely to get into quasi-garbage time in the 2nd half in which Kentucky won’t be behind by more than 20 or 25 points but will be dead-in-the-water anyway.

I recommended waiting for the 1st half outcome – if it’s a high-scoring 30:00 then the O/U will soar only for Over-bettors to be disappointed by a bland 2nd frame. If it’s low-scoring, bettors might not imagine just how run-oriented Georgia will be in the 2nd half. Smart wants to get Fromm back into a good rhythm…but he won’t risking losing another game to get there.

Pick: Under (Halftime In-Play)

South Florida Bulls at Navy Midshipmen

South Florida continues to be a confounding team, full of quality athletes and game-losing mistakes. USF has actually won 3 of its last 4 contests including a 27-23 win over BYU in which RB Jordan Cronkrite for 150+ yards and 2 touchdowns. But in September the Bulls blew multiple chances to beat Vanderbilt 2.0 (Georgia Tech) and later suffered an epic collapse vs SMU.

USF quarterback Blake Barnett is injured and won’t play against Navy, another reason South Florida isn’t getting very much action ATS. Barnett has struggled mightily at times against good defenses, though. Jordan McCloud (see the CBS Baltimore snippet below) had already been brought-in behind center to spark the USF attack…but the former backup QB isn’t 100% healthy either.

Navy’s defense qualifies as a good’un…but it took a while to show up on the scoreboard. The Middies recently lost to Memphis 35-23 in a prime-time conference scrum, causing AAC speculators to assume they were dealing with yet another average, ordinary academy D-unit. However, it was the Tigers’ special teams that dominated the game, racking up around 200 return yards and forcing Navy to defend half the field or less on a ton of Memphis possessions.

The Midshipmen rebounded with a dramatic rivalry win over Air Force, then put it all together in a 45-17 thumping of the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. I expect another breeze for the service academy with the most-improved defense of any Group-of-5 program in 2019.

Pick: Navy ATS (-14)