Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks are the better team, but this is too many points to give an improving Razorbacks squad. Take Arkansas as road underdogs at South Carolina.
There will be a bit of a redundancy to this one, but after cashing 5* tickets with Arkansas in each of the first two appearances for Bobby Petrino’s team as an SEC road underdog, we are able to go to the well with outstanding value once again, with the markets now offering +13 across the board.
And in many ways it is the same logic now that we used earlier – a young Razorback team transitioning to a new coaching staff was in no position to take on the likes of Alabama, Texas and Florida in a three-week span, one of the toughest scheduling cycles we have ever charted. But that led to a complete over-reaction as the markets down-graded them off of those results, and that is a big part of why this line is so far off of where it should be.
Since that awful three-week cycle it has been a 2-2 SU but 4-0 ATS run for Arkansas, with the two outright losses coming by a combined three points, and note that those games were all against difficult competition (three of the four teams will definitely be in bowl games, while Auburn still harbors hopes). Now we do not need for them to take this game to the wire, but merely make enough plays to hang around, and that is not asking much at all vs. a pedestrian South Carolina offense that is not a threat to open much breathing room. With a top-notch runner in Michael Smith (987 yards at 5.3 is remarkable considering the schedule he has been up against), and the maturing of Casey Dick in the Petrino system (he has some very talented young receivers to work with), the Razorback offense brings much more potential to the table then their favored opponents in this one.
South Carolina is only averaging 20.5 points in SEC play, but in truth the offense has been even worse than that – there were three touchdowns scored directly by either the defense or special teams in those six games, and in half of those games they could not reach 290 total yards. The OL does not get much push, with leading RB’s Mike Davis and Eric Baker getting amic counts of 3.5 and 3.6 per rush, and even though we are now into November Steve Spurrier has not been able to get either Chris Smelley or Stephen Garcia to take over as the #1 QB. At this point he has not even named a starter for this week, saying that it will be based on who looks best in pre-game warmups (from the Old Ball Coach - “We really think to maximize our team we need to play both of them. ... because our offense has stunk.”).
The South Carolina offensive struggles play to our favor in more ways than one here – not only are the Gamecocks hard-pressed to score, particularly in terms of an inability to make big plays (their longest touchdown of the season was just 34 yards, and they only have one play of more than 50 yards), but because both QB’s have been mistake-prone, Spurrier may go as conservative with a lead here as he did vs. Tennessee last week, when there were 44 running plays vs. only 20 passes. That helps to keep the underdog in the hunt at a most generous pointspread.
Free Pick: Arkansas +13 (-110)