What Vegas thinks: Gamecocks emerging as a trendy upset pick vs. LSU in betting world
Coach Shane Beamer and the South Carolina football team are feeling confident after winning their SEC opener on the road at Kentucky.
Gamblers are, too.
The Gamecocks might be a seven-point underdog at home against No. 16 LSU this weekend, but bettors are loving USC’s chances of keeping Saturday’s game close — or winning it straight up — with ESPN’s “College GameDay” in Columbia for the first time in a decade.
LSU (1-1) opened as a touchdown favorite on Sunday for its SEC opener at South Carolina (2-0), and that line has held steady. The only major sportsbook with a point spread closer than LSU minus-7 is DraftKings, which lists LSU at minus-6.5.
But according to data from VegasInsider.com, people are jumping on that spread in favor of South Carolina, confident that after an upset win at Kentucky the Gamecocks can keep things going against the Tigers and cover their spread against LSU by losing by fewer than seven points — or winning the game outright at Williams-Brice Stadium.
Per that website, South Carolina has picked up 81% of the total bets placed on the point spread this week (and 78% of the money placed on such bets) despite being an underdog to coach Brian Kelly’s Tigers.
USC trending up
It’s a noticeable shift in public perception for a USC team that’s historically struggled against conference foe LSU and was on the wrong side of betting trends in Week 1 against Old Dominion and Week 2 against Kentucky.
The Gamecocks were a 20.5-point home favorite against Old Dominion in their season opener but didn’t command much respect from gamblers. According to VegasInsider.com, bets against the spread were split almost 50-50 for the SEC vs. Sun Belt school matchup.
Then South Carolina trailed ODU in the fourth quarter and needed a late forced fumble from edge rusher Dylan Stewart and rushing touchdown from QB LaNorris Sellers to eke out a 23-19 win — setting the team back even further for Week 2.
Coach Mark Stoops’ Kentucky Wildcats closed as a resounding 9.5-point betting favorite at home against South Carolina and picked up well over half of the public bets to cover that spread in Lexington. The “ESPN College GameDay” set predicted a Kentucky win, too, by a vote of 4-2.
But South Carolina started conference play with a bang, going up 10-0 early against Kentucky and scoring 21 unanswered points in the second half for a 31-6 win. Beamer said in his postgame news conference that “frankly, there were a lot of false and lazy narratives out there” over the week about USC after a four-point win against a G5 team.
“Not that I pay attention to gambling lines, but that’s why the line continued to get bigger this week for Kentucky as the week went,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of belief in this program.”
There is now.
LSU is still the runaway favorite on money line bets — straight-up win-loss bets — with 82% of them. But South Carolina’s 18% share there is significant, too, considering last week heading into the Kentucky game only 5% of gamblers had dared to pick USC to win outright.
Outside of that and the aforementioned point spread momentum, ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) considers Saturday’s game a toss-up and gives LSU a 51% chance to win and South Carolina a 49% chance to win.
As a refresher: South Carolina is 2-19-1 all time against LSU, a team it played infrequently under the SEC’s previous format since they were in different divisions. And the Gamecocks have only beaten LSU at home once — in 1930.
That’s a 94-year drought.
In the eyes of Vegas, though, it has a chance of ending Saturday.
SOUTH CAROLINA VS. LSU
- Who: South Carolina (2-0, 1-0 SEC) vs. No. 16 LSU (1-1, 0-0 SEC)
- Where: Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C.
- When: Noon Saturday
- TV: ABC
- Stream: ESPN app
- Line: LSU by 7
