Tennessee vs. Kentucky Spread Pick
The Kentucky Wildcats had their SEC title dreams dashed a week ago by Georgia and now they’ll attempt to regroup with a road trip to Knoxville. Listed as a home dog today, is there value in the Tennessee Volunteers at the betting window?
Game Snapshot
125 Kentucky Wildcats at 126 Tennessee Volunteers
3:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, November 10
Neyland Stadium, Knoxville, Tennessee
Public Betting Trends
According to oddsmakers from online sports book BetNow.eu, the Wildcats are 5-point favorites to beat the Volunteers. The total, meanwhile, sits at 42 points. As of this writing, 65% of the public betting tickets wagered on this matchup are on the Wildcats.
Kentucky Wildcats
Kentucky redshirt sophomore Terry Wilson completed 23-of-29 passes for 226 yards and one touchdown in Saturday’s 34-17 loss to Georgia. Wilson (6’3/205) went over 200 yards on better than 70% completions in the second-consecutive game. That’s the good news. The bad is that defenses are keying on the run and Kentucky still can’t generate explosive passing plays, instead generating yards with a variety of screens and quick-hitters. This is because of limitations to Wilson’s game, which serves to cap Kentucky’s offensive ceiling (to be entirely fair, Wilson’s legs have appreciably raised the floor of this offense all year). Kentucky, now 7-2, will look to bounce back at Tennessee next week.
Tennessee Volunteers
Tennessee redshirt sophomore QB Jarrett Guarantano completed 16-of-21 passes for 172 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions in Saturday’s 14-3 win against Charlotte. It wasn’t pretty, but Guarantano didn’t make any mistakes either in leading the Vols to the home win to keep their bowl hopes alive. Guarantano has nine touchdowns and just two interceptions through nine appearances this season, and both of those miscues came in the blowout loss against Florida back on Sept. 22. He takes care of the ball well, but he doesn’t take a lot of chances or roll up big stats, either. They’ll try to get back to .500 next weekend against Kentucky.
Betting Trends
Kentucky
The Wildcats are 1-4 against the spread in their last five trips to Knoxville and 1-5 against the number in their last six games overall.
Tennessee
The Vols are 0-4 against the number in their last four home games and 0-5 ATS in their last five games coming off a win.
Prediction
I’m backing the home dog here. The Wildcats essentially have nothing more to play for following their loss last week to the Dawgs. They won’t play in the SEC title game, their long-shot odds to play in the national championship game also vanished with that defeat and at 7-2, they’re already bowl eligible. Thanks to a lackluster passing attack that has zero explosiveness, UK doesn’t blow many opponents out. There’s value in a slowly improving UT team.
College Football Prediction: Tennessee Volunteers +5