309 Liberty (-6) over Syracuse
Over the last 5 seasons Liberty has played 10 games against Power 5 teams and last year the beat Syracuse, Virginia Tech and only lost by 1 point to a pretty good North Carolina State team. They return 20 starters from last years team that went 10-1 SU 9-2 ATS and Malik Willis has the 4th best odds to be the number 1 pick in the 2022 Draft on Draft Kings. This line opened with Liberty being 6 point road favorites and the line looks like it’s moving towards Liberty at (-6 -113) so I’d take Liberty now before the line gets back to 6.5/7 again.
315 Kentucky (-5) over South Carolina
I think Kentucky was in a look ahead spot last week as they were 30+ point favorites against Chattanooga and only won by 5 as they had another conference game the following week. The Wildcats have a solid running game led by Chris Rodriguez who averaged 6.6 YPC last year there’s no drop off as he’s averaging 6.4 YPC. The big improvement from last season to this season is in the passing game. Last year Terry Wilson was more of a runner than thrower as he only averaged 5.9 YPA and had over 100 carries but this year so far Will Levi’s is completing 65% of his passes while averaging 10.1 YPA which I think gives them more balance on offense.
380 Mississippi St. (+2.5) over LSU
Last year was Mike Leach’s SEC debut and they opened the season up with a upset win over LSU as 16 point underdogs so LSU should be out for revenge but Mississippi St. returns 16 starters from that team. The ticket count is pretty split down the middle for this matchup but the money is coming in on the Bulldogs dropping the line to 2.5 from its opening of 3.5 so I like Mississippi St to get another win as I think the wrong team is the favorite in this matchup.
395 Tennessee (+19) over Florida
Teams don’t typically play well in the following week after playing Alabama and Florida was a two point conversion away from sending the game into OT and having a chance to upset Alabama now they have to find a way to get up to play a much improved Tennessee team from last year. The Volunteers won all of 3 games last year so far they’ve already matched last seasons win total going 3-1. Josh Heupel comes over from UCF in his first season as head coach and he brought his highly efficient offense with him as Tennessee is averaging 223 rushing yards per game while team is averaging 42 PPG and the pass attack looks a lot better with Hendon Hooker at QB as he’s completing 70% of his passes and 8.3 YPA.
398 NC State (+10) over Clemson
Clemson is only returning 5 starters on offense from last year and they’ve started out the season struggling on that side of the ball as they’re averaging just 22 PPG (8.5 PPG vs Power 5 opponents) compared to 43.5 PPG last year and they have to go up against a tough Conference opponent in NC State. In 2019 Clemson beat NC State by 45 points as 34 point favorites and I think that’s still on the minds of NC State as they have a lot of juniors and seniors on their team and return 19 starters from last year including the Devin Leary. Clemson can still rely on their defense but I think NC State does just enough to stay within the number and potentially have a shot at the back door cover if it’s needed.