What Vegas Thinks: USC vs Texas A&M point spread largest in still-young SEC series

Alexis Cubit
·4 min read

After playing a close game against Vanderbilt, South Carolina will face a Texas A&M team that beat Alabama and routed Missouri in the last two weeks.

ESPN Chalk gambling writer David Purdum discusses the betting history between the Gamecocks and Aggies and how the 21-point betting line is the biggest in this series over the past seven seasons.

The State: South Carolina closed as an 18½-point favorite against Vanderbilt but only won by one point. You mentioned last week that oddsmakers were still trying to figure out the Commodores. What were the takeaways from that game about both teams moving forward?

DP: South Carolina just continues to struggle, kind of like Clemson. The line opened up this week against Texas A&M, a team that’s beaten Alabama, blew out Missouri last week, at 19. It’s grown to 21 in a few days and it’s been up, so they’ve got their hands full. I was looking at their record over the last 20 SEC games and South Carolina is 6-14 straight up and 7-12-1 against the spread in the last 20 games, so they’re on a putrid run right now.

TS: How does South Carolina being a 21-point underdog to Texas A&M compare to the previous lines when the two teams have played?

DP: This is the largest line in this series dating back to 2014. In 2016, Texas A&M was a 19½-point favorite over South Carolina. Other than that, we had last year, they were 9½ underdogs. They were an 11-point underdog in 2019.

TS: South Carolina is 0-7 all time vs Texas A&M. How many times has South Carolina been the favorite in the game?

DP: They’ve only been favored in this series once in 2014. They were a nine-point favorite and got blown out, 52-28. If you just look from last year to this year when they were a 9½-point underdog and now they’re a 21-point underdog, that really shows you.

TS: How have the Aggies fared against the spread this season?

DP: Texas A&M is 5-2 straight up and 4-3 against the spread. They’re 3-1 against the spread at home. You’ve just got to look at them being able to beat Alabama. If you’re able to beat Alabama, you clearly have significant talent. You’ve got to have some really good players to beat an Alabama team. There’s no fluke beating Alabama and they followed it up last week with another convincing win, so they seem to be playing their best football right now.

TS: Speaking of that, how did Alabama’s loss to Texas A&M change the SEC champion odds in any way?

DP: Georgia is now the consensus favorite to win the national championship. In the SEC, they’re a -130 favorite. Alabama’s +110. Those two teams have kind of separated themselves from the pack and the whole nation, really. It’s Georgia and Alabama, and then it’s everybody else trying to figure out who are those third and fourth playoff teams. If Georgia were to beat Alabama and Alabama had two losses, it would be interesting to see if they get into the playoff. Right now, Georgia is the favorite in the SEC. They’re at -130, meaning you have to bet $130 to win $100 if you want Georgia to win the SEC. Alabama’s second at +110. No other team has better odds than 30/1, and that’s Auburn and Ole Miss.

TS: What are some other SEC games of note for this week?

DP: Tennessee-Alabama. Alabama’s a 25-point favorite. They’ve owned Tennessee recently. It’ll be interesting to see what Tennessee does with Josh Heupel. They had a close loss against Ole Miss. There was a lot of controversy at the end with fans getting out of hand, so we’ll see how they rebound from that. LSU at Mississippi is an interesting game. We just had coach (Ed) Orgeron announce that this is going to be his last year with LSU. Mississippi is about a 9½-point favorite. LSU is coming off a win over Florida, Ole Miss coming off a win on the road there in Tennessee, so that’s an interesting one.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest Stories

  • Bobbi Althoff was the victim of deepfake AI porn. 'This world is scary. It's getting scarier,' she says.

    The podcast host and social media influencer was surprised to learn that people thought the compromising imagery was real.

  • Pension funds brace for £30bn hit from Gove leasehold reforms

    Pension funds are braced for a hit worth tens of billions of pounds as Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, tries to salvage his ambition of overhauling Britain’s centuries-old property leasehold system. Sky News has learnt that the insurance and pensions industries believe that Mr Gove's now-favoured option of imposing a £250 cap on ground rent and transitioning to 'peppercorn' levels over a 20-year period will cost in the region of £30bn. The figure is understood to mirror the Treasury's internal estimate of the cost to investors, according to insiders.

  • Trump trial updates: Jury selection finished, man sets himself on fire outside courthouse

    Five more alternate jurors were selected Friday following questioning from prosecution and defense lawyers, rounding out the 12 jurors and six alternates needed for the case against Trump to proceed.

  • Yorkshire Shepherdess still works with husband on farm despite split, son reveals

    The Yorkshire Shepherdess is still working alongside her estranged husband on their farm, their eldest son has revealed.

  • PM says welfare reforms not about cutting costs as ‘hostile rhetoric’ criticised

    A charity said Rishi Sunak’s proposals feel like ‘a full-on assault on disabled people’.

  • GM Staios taking cautious approach to off-season after Sens miss playoffs again

    OTTAWA — Another season out of the playoffs has left Ottawa Senators players frustrated and disappointed, but a complete overhaul doesn't appear to be in Steve Staios's plans. In his media availability with media Friday morning, the Senators general manager acknowledged his players' feelings — captain Brady Tkachuk said Thursday as players cleaned out their lockers that he was “sick and tired of losing" — but was cautious in revealing plans for next season. “I think the word frustration comes fr

  • I’m sober, he’s a drinker, and it’s damaging our relationship

    To Chris*, it’s a deserved bottle of beer after a long day at work – but when his wife, Leanne*, catches sight of it, her shoulders draw together in annoyance. She’s spent the past two hours helping their children with their homework and getting them through bath time; when Chris, picking up on her irritation, offers to pour her a glass of wine, she shakes her head and returns to reading their three-year-old a story.

  • Canucks set to face Predators in first playoff appearance since 2020

    VANCOUVER — Expectations for the Vancouver Canucks were not high heading into the season. Asked in September if he expected the team to make the playoffs, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford hedged. “To be very to the point, the changes that we made, we have a playoff team if everything goes right,” he said. Things did go right. On Sunday, the Canucks will host their first home playoff game since 2015 when they kick off a first-round matchup against the Nashville Predators. Vancouver h

  • Home Hardware is having a huge sale on garden & lawn essentials — save on lawn mowers, fertilizer and more

    Now through April 24, save on everything you need for spring gardening at Home Hardware.

  • Woodstock facing an ’emergency level situation’ with its water supply

    Almost a decade after identifying the need to secure a second well site to guard against a potential loss of water supply, Woodstock sits in a more precarious position than ever. During the long-awaited water update at the April 16 council session, Mayor Trina Jones delivered a stark analysis of the town’s water supply concerns. “It has been about a year since our council became aware of the issues with the new Grafton Wellhouse project and that it was deemed by Dillon Consulting to be usable on

  • Prison Architect 2 is denied release until September 3

    Double Eleven and publisher Paradox Interactive have delayed Prison Architect 2 by four moths to work on technical issues.

  • We found Taylor Swift's iconic red lipstick favorites from over the years

    The singer's signature bold picks have included Pat McGrath, CoverGirl and Chanel.

  • Mount Miguel High School student arrested on suspicion of sexual assault

    An 18-year-old Mount Miguel High School student turned himself in to authorities in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl on campus last week.

  • Watch: Police threaten to arrest ‘openly Jewish’ man for walking near pro-Palestine protest

    Metropolitan Police officers threatened to arrest an “openly Jewish” man for walking in central London during a pro-Palestine protest.

  • Amazon advertising chief steps aside for new role

    Amazon.com's advertising chief Colleen Aubrey, who has held that role for nearly three years, is moving to a new undisclosed position at the company. Spokeswoman Kristin Mariani said Aubrey's new position would be announced later. Aubrey is also a member of the elite "S-team," which advises CEO Andy Jassy and has worked in the advertising unit for over 11 years.

  • Strain on emergency services a concern with new evacuation model

    Area politicians are concerned about the potential strain evacuations could have on emergency services. Cochrane District Social Services Administration Board (CDSSAB) director of health Jean Carriere gave an update on First Nation evacuations at the April 18 meeting. Some CDSSAB members expressed concerns about hosting First Nations evacuees and the strain it can have on services that are already stretched thin due to flooding in some areas and the recent Empire Complex fire. While Carriere sai

  • Stock market today: Wall Street limps toward its longest weekly losing streak since September

    NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s latest losing week looks to be coming to a relatively quiet close on Friday. U.S. stocks are drifting in mixed trading after oil prices briefly surged overnight on worries about fighting in the Middle East. The S&P 500 was 0.5% lower in afternoon trading and on track for its third straight losing week. That would be its longest such streak since September, before it broke out into a record-setting romp. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 207 points, or 0.6%, as

  • Overnight visitors to the Kent coast could face tourist tax

    A Labour council in a holiday hotspot is considering imposing a tax on tourists who stay overnight.

  • Thousands of housing units, tramway in Montreal's new Hippodrome plan

    The City of Montreal is planning to build a carbon-neutral district of 20,000 housing units on the site of the former Montreal Hippodrome and land east of the Namur Metro station.Sandwiched between a railway yard, highway and industrial buildings in northwestern Montreal, the huge swath of land used to house the former Blue Bonnets track, where horses raced for over a century. In 2017, the city acquired the land from Quebec.Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has called the plan Quebec's largest real

  • NDP hosting town hall in Wilmot Friday

    The Ontario New Democrats have scheduled a town hall meeting April 19 to further protest the attempted land acquisition by the Region of Waterloo. This time, NDP leader and leader of the provincial opposition Marit Stiles will be in attendance. A release from Stiles’ office said since last August, government officials have put into play the expropriation of 770 hectares of farmland for industrial development without public consultation. “To date, there are no clear answers on how rezoning will a