College Football Free Picks: Mississippi State at LSU

College football betting continues this week and Oddsbay’s handicapping team has you covered! Up today, they'll be going at it like 'cats and dogs' as the LSU Tigers host the Mississippi State Bulldogs in SEC action. Oddsbay has you covered no matter the season or sport!
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT LSU--SEPTEMBER 18, 2010 4:00 PM PACIFIC
One of the more intriguing pointspread statistics of the past few years has been LSU’s struggles against the number. They’ve been a solid team for quite some time now, first under Nick Saban (now at Alabama) and more recently Les Miles. Yet no matter how you slice it, they’re a bad pointspread team. We’ll start with their performance as a SEC home favorite where they’re currently on a 2-16 ATS run. Overall at home, they’re 3-10 ATS in the L3 years and 45-68 ATS at home since 1993. As a favorite in all venues they’re 6-12 ATS in the L3 years. Miles has never cashed a ticket in his home SEC openers (0-7-1 ATS), and they’re on a 2-15 ATS run as SEC home chalk of more than a field goal.
Trends like these will only take you so far in sports betting, but when they’re accompanied by a logical explanation they’re worth paying attention to. LSU is a team that remains overvalued by the wagering public, so they’re already overpriced relative to the pointspread. Furthermore, even at their best they’re not a team that drops big margins on opponents. Both of those facts are in play this year, and with the talent level in Baton Rouge down a bit from recent years the Bayou Bengals could be an even stronger ATS ‘go against’ this year.
LSU is 2-0 SU and won and covered against a rebuilding Vanderbilt team last week (obviously there wasn’t a written test, since the Commodores would have easily won that battle) but even that result is subject to scrutiny. They led 10-3 in the fourth quarter against a team that they should have been able to handle with sheer athleticism.
Their opening game in the Chick-Fil-A Classic at the Georgia Dome against North Carolina is even more instructive and could portent greater struggle against solid SEC opponents. That was the game in which seemingly the entire North Carolina roster was suspended resulting in a huge line move in the direction of LSU. The game opened right around ‘pick’ and closed with LSU a -7’ point favorite. LSU opened a sizable lead, but had to hang on for a 6 point victory and a pointspread loss.
The boxscore reveals a greater struggle for LSU than the final score indicates. Facing a team missing 13 key players due to suspension, the Bayou Bengals lost the yardage battle (436 to 313) and the defense was shredded by a one dimensional Tar Heel offense that passed for 412 of those yards. The offense wasn’t especially productive either through the air or on the ground and turned the ball over 5 times.
Mississippi State could break through for a winning season in their second year under coach Dan Mullen. He took a team that was 4-8 in 2008 and improved that record by 1 SU victory and went 6-5 against the spread. He’s upgraded the program in many ways that aren’t immediately apparent, but overtime will aggregate into a more competitive team across the board. Mullen’s emphasis has been on a greater focus and fewer mistakes, and that’s the diametric opposite of what LSU has done of late.
The head to head record between these teams is very misleading due to the change in philosophy under Mullen. LSU has dominated the series to the tune of 17-1 SU and 14-4 ATS, but last year the Bulldogs covered easily and had a shot to win the game late before falling 30-26. Worth noting that 3 of the 4 games that Mississippi State has covered in the series since 1993 came under Les Miles. This could be a spot where LSU gets caught looking ahead to a big non-conference game against West Virginia and falls victim to an outright upset by an improving team. We’ll call the outright upset here, but we’ve got a nice margin of error getting more than a touchdown.
PLAY MISSISSIPPI STATE +7' OVER LSU