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I’ll take Texas A&M and the nine and a half at Tiger Stadium. The numbers make LSU about a four-point favorite, and the market is pricing this off one bad Saturday in College Station. I like the Aggies here, but the line has moved against us and the gap is now too big to trust, so it’s a lean.
The Matchup
- Texas A&M is coming off an ugly loss. Kentucky beat the Aggies 31-21 last week as a seventeen-point underdog, and it did it with 21 straight points in the third quarter. We had A&M in that game, and it cost us. That loss is also the reason this line looks the way it does.
- LSU lost too. The Tigers fell 32-24 at Ole Miss after coming back from 24-7 to tie it. Their last drive died on a tipped interception at the Ole Miss 6.
- Both quarterbacks are healthy. Marcel Reed is in his third season as A&M’s starter, and Sam Leavitt runs Lane Kiffin’s first LSU offense. LSU lost Dashawn Spears and Phillip Wright III for the season and Trey’Dez Green is banged up. A&M is without Terry Bussey for the year.
- The LSU defense is the best one on the field. Our preview had it third in the country before the season, and the current ratings still have it top five. Kickoff is 7:30 PM ET on ABC at Tiger Stadium, which is its own problem for any road team.
The Number
The current ratings, updated after Week 3, have LSU at 20.3 and Texas A&M at 18.3. Give LSU two and a half points for playing at home and that’s LSU by 4.5. The board asks nine and a half. That’s five points on Texas A&M, over our four-point warning line.
The line was LSU by three over the summer and six before Week 3. After Kentucky beat A&M it jumped to eight and a half, touched nine and a half Sunday night, sat at eight and a half for most of the week, and moved back to nine and a half on Thursday night. That last move went against us, toward LSU. The ratings saw the same Kentucky game the market did. They moved A&M down, but not five and a half points down.
Split it by side of the ball and the ratings project something like LSU 27, A&M 23. The LSU defense is the best group on the field and should win its half of the game. The A&M offense still rates in the top ten in the country, and it only needs to keep this within one score.
That’s the case: the market reacted harder to one result than the numbers did. The risk is that the market is right and something is broken in College Station. A gap over four points is a warning in our system, not a reason to bet more, and last weekend both of our featured plays where the line moved against us lost. So this started the week as a half play and it’s now a lean at confidence two, no stake. I still like the side. I just don’t trust the size of the gap.
In-Game Bets
- If A&M is within a score at halftime. Look at the A&M moneyline. A close game at the half is the whole case playing out.
- If LSU leads by 17 in the first half. Leave it. That’s the Kentucky second half happening again, and the market will have been right.
- If Reed throws an interception in LSU territory. Do nothing. One bad throw is not the game, and you have nine and a half points of cushion.
Bottom Line
Take Texas A&M plus nine and a half at . Lean. The numbers make LSU about a four-point favorite, the line jumped six and a half points after one loss, and it moved another point against us Thursday night. That puts the gap over our warning line, so it stays a lean with no stake.
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