Saturday, Sept. 13
3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific
ABC
The stage is set for a hugely important SEC football game on Saturday in Knoxville. Whoever wins this game between the Georgia Bulldogs and Tennessee Volunteers will take a big step toward the College Football Playoff. Kirby Smart’s dominance of Tennessee is well-documented.
Georgia-Tennessee is a high-stakes SEC battle
Kirby Smart has owned Tennessee, but that’s no guarantee this week
Smart coached against Tennessee all the time under Nick Saban at Alabama. He knows this team. He loves beating this team. He has formed a habit of outflanking the Vols. That’s why Georgia is favored here. One betting truism is that you should continue to bet on a trend unless or until you see substantial evidence that the trend will not last. Is that what we have here? It’s an interesting discussion to have.
Georgia Bulldogs-Tennessee Volunteers Odds
Hear TJ Rives and Jason Powers break down this game on the 3Dog Thursday Podcast by clicking Play below:
Spread: Georgia -3.5 (-110), Tennessee +3.5 (-110)
Total: 49.5 (Over -110, Under -110)
Underdog moneyline: Tennessee +145
The case to make for Tennessee is that the Vols have looked better than Georgia to this point in the season. Tennessee looked strong against Syracuse in its season opener. UT quarterback Joey Aguilar has looked relatively comfortable within coach Josh Heupel’s offense. That is a highly encouraging development for the Vols, who – in the middle of August – weren’t entirely sure who would be their starting quarterback for the season. Aguilar has taken charge of his role and has delivered good results.
Aguilar has looked better than his counterpart in this game, Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton. Georgia failed to score 30 points against Austin Peay, an FCS team. Georgia’s offense has been very sluggish, creating real doubts about UGA’s ability to score enough to win this game.
We have to ask ourselves if we have seen the real Georgia, or if the Dawgs were merely jogging through their cupcake games without showing too much for Tennessee. It could be that Georgia is saving its playbook and will spring a lot of surprises on Tennessee.
What is also worth noting is that the Syracuse team Tennessee walloped in Week 1 is not very good. Syracuse was fortunate to barely scrape by UConn last weekend. The Orange trailed for 59 minutes before taking a late lead and eventually winning in overtime. Tennessee has not been playing high-level competition. It is easy to fall into the trap of overvaluing what the Vols have done this season.
From a betting standpoint, this is a hard game to pick straight up, but it offers an opportunity to win a good amount of money. It’s actually simple: Pick Georgia on the moneyline at a fairly reasonable price of -175. Then take Tennessee +3.5 at -110. If Georgia wins by a field goal, you win both bets. There is a decent chance you can “middle” two bets, which is what any expert bettor attempts to do on a consistent basis, creating two winning tickets when the betting prices are comparable. You can also wait 10 minutes or one quarter to see if you can either get a lower moneyline price on Georgia or a higher spread plus the points with Tennessee.