Welcome back to Final Lines, a weekly breakdown of the betting angles in every LSU game. Last year, we went 7-5 overall and this year we\u2019re off to a 1-1 start after cashing the LSU Team Total over 55.5 against Grambling State.<\/p>\n
LSU takes on Mississippi State on Saturday morning in Starkville with the hope of starting SEC play with a win against its longtime rival. The Tigers needed a second half comeback last year to get the Week 3 win at home, but this time, there are greater expectations on Briam Kelly\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get into our betting preview for this game and discuss my pick of the week.<\/p>\n
The Tigers are more than a touchdown favorites going into this game, but not quite at the 10-point mark, which is a key number. This game started the week at LSU -10, but has held steady at 9.5 and shouldnt move too much before kickoff. Mississippi State is likely viewed as the worst team in the SEC West by the books, coming off of a really troublesome game against Arizona that took overtime to win despite a 5-1 advantage in turnovers. With a new scheme and a defense that\u2019s good, but not great, it\u2019s hard to see where Mississippi State has an advantage besides playing at home on Saturday.<\/p>\n
LSU is somewhat of an enigma with a loss to Florida State that clearly lowered their ceiling, but it\u2019s obvious that this team still has enough star power and continuity to be a good team in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SP+ has LSU as 1.2 point favorites, CFBGraphs has LSU as just under a 7-point favorite, Sporstline\u2019s model has LSU winning by 4. Then, you consider LSU\u2019s consistent struggles on the road in the five game sample size under Brian Kelly where the Tigers are 2-5 against the spread outside of Louisiana, and that\u2019s including last year\u2019s bowl game.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not taking it, but I think the lean here from most outlets is Mississippi State +9.5, although I don\u2019t trust the Bulldogs much at all, as we\u2019ll get to below.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s two offenses that lack much dynamism, but it\u2019s also two defenses that have not been great on a down-by-down basis this year. I really don\u2019t know what to expect from the two offenses here. Mississippi State should open up their playbook a bit more and get closer to 50-50 in play calling to target the Tigers\u2019 secondary, but with how uncomfortable Mississippi State looked in the second half against Arizona, I wonder how much the Bulldogs really believe in their pass game despite having a quality quarterback running the show. It was as though the last six months have been all about building the run game and there was no urgency to throw a changeup even with their backs against the wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For LSU, there\u2019s a lot of ways this could go on offense. We have last year\u2019s struggles and inconsistencies on offense, but overall in two games I\u2019d say the offense has a good chance to break 30 if it\u2019s sharp. I trust Daniels to not turn it over and the run game to perhaps find its footing, but when looking at this contest, I can also see it being a rockfight at times. I\u2019d lean under in this game, but it\u2019s not my play. <\/p>\n
I have two props I gave a long look. The first was Will Rogers under 1.5 touchdowns. He\u2019s certainly talented enough, but in this new scheme, Rogers having two passing touchdowns feels like a lot to ask.<\/p>\n
Second prop I considered was Jayden Daniels over 253.5 passing yards. When looking at his game against Florida State, Daniels had receivers dropping balls, a shaky offensive line, and an abysmal run game and passed for 347 yards on 37 attempts. With his efficiency, if he gets 30 passes in this game, that\u2019s likely about 22 completions. All he would need is 11.5 yards per reception to hit the over. One big play should do it. I feel pretty good about the passing attack of this offense right now, even if it\u2019s not the most explosive.<\/p>\n
LSU Football Greg Penn<\/p>\n
LSU\u2019s defense has question marks, especially with linebacker Omar Speights potentially sidelined, but Matt House knows how to slow down one-dimensional offenses. Last year I\u2019d classify Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, New Mexico, and UAB as one-dimensional offenses and none of those teams scored more than 20 points. On average, those six teams scored just 12.2 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have no idea what LSU\u2019s offense will look like, that\u2019s why I am staying away from the overall total here, but give me LSU\u2019s defense to keep Mississippi State\u2019s run game under wraps and not allow explosive plays. Also I expect perhaps a slower paced game with the run game for both teams having some success.<\/p>\n
I fully understand a special teams mishap, an interception\/fumble, or a couple of explosive plays can beat me, but in games like this, Jayden Daniels takes over, takes care of the ball, and gets out without making the costly turnover. I\u2019m somewhat worried about Rogers hitting a big passing play or two that flips the field, but I really don\u2019t fear the Bulldogs\u2019 receivers at all entering this game and Rogers\u2019 average depth of target is just 6.4 so far. As I wrote in my keys to the game story, LSU has been excellent defending plays from 1-9 yards under House. The Tigers\u2019 tackling will have to be much improved, but I trust LSU\u2019s defensive line to dominate.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t feel great after what we saw in the second half of the Florida State game and the first quarter against Grambling, but it\u2019s the right play for Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
The post Final Lines: Trust Matt House in LSU\u2019s SEC opener<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome back to Final Lines, a weekly breakdown of the betting angles in every LSU…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}