{"id":18547,"date":"2011-10-13T08:55:15","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T13:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=18547"},"modified":"2011-10-13T08:55:15","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T13:55:15","slug":"free-college-football-picks-south-carolina-gamecocks-at-mississippi-state-bulldogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-college-football-picks-south-carolina-gamecocks-at-mississippi-state-bulldogs-18547\/","title":{"rendered":"Free College Football Picks: South Carolina Gamecocks at Mississippi State Bulldogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 15 South Carolina Gamecocks at Mississippi State Bulldogs
\nSaturday, 10\/15\/11, 12:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 SEC Network
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Carolina -5.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 South Carolina -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 48
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 47
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Week<\/a>
The South Carolina Gamecocks are slight road favorites Saturday at Mississippi State<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South Carolina is set to take to the road for the first time since its 45-42 win over the Georgia Bulldogs in Week 2.\u00a0 The Gamecocks are coming off a 54-3 blowout victory over the Kentucky Wildcats as 20.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 The big story around campus this week was the removal of former starting quarterback Stephen Garcia, who failed an alcohol test, which wasn\u2019t surprising due to his past problems.\u00a0 \u201cWe all feel like we\u2019ve given Stephen numerous opportunities to be a student-athlete here at South Carolina,\u201d commented Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier.\u00a0 \u201cWe wish him the best.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not sophomore Connor Shaw\u2019s team, as he completed 26 of 39 passes for 311 yards and four touchdowns last week.\u00a0 South Carolina is 8-2 ATS as a road favorite of three points or less.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks will be playing the Bulldogs for the 14th time in the series, leading 7-6, including wins in the last five meetings since the 2000 campaign.\u00a0 Spurrier has tallied a 6-2 all-time record against Mississippi State, including a 2-0 mark while on campus here.\u00a0 Defensively, the team has been outstanding since surrendering 79 points in the season\u2019s first two games.\u00a0 Their opponents\u2019 scoring average has moved down from 39.5 points per game to 20.3 over the course of the season.\u00a0 Running back Marcus Lattimore shouldn\u2019t be ignored, entering the week as the sixth-best rusher in college football.<\/p>\n

Mississippi State will be playing its fourth morning game in the first seven weeks of the season, which actually could be an advantage.\u00a0 The Bulldogs have also played four of their first six games away from home, but will close out the season in playing four of the final six tilts in Starksville.\u00a0 Talk around campus is squarely on the quarterback position, as sophomore Tyler Russell is pushing senior Chris Relf.\u00a0 \u201cWhoever gives us the best chance to win, we\u2019ll go play with them,\u201d commented head coach Dan Mullen.\u00a0 Mississippi State is 1-5 ATS on the season.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs rely heavily on a ground game that has rushed for over 100 yards in 28 of 31 games under Mullen.\u00a0 Senior Vick Ballard has rushed for 531 yards and five touchdowns, ranking fifth in the SEC in yards per game.\u00a0 Turnovers are a key to any team\u2019s success, especially this one, posting a plus-six margin in victory and minus-one when falling in defeat.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Bulldogs due to their 12-5-1 ATS mark as an underdog of three points or less, while the Gamecocks are 2-6 ATS following a spread victory.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 15 South Carolina Gamecocks at Mississippi State Bulldogs Saturday, 10\/15\/11, 12:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 SEC Network Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Carolina -5.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 South Carolina -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 48 Current Total:\u00a0 47 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker South Carolina is set to take to the road for the first time since its 45-42 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":8141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[5508,2898,739,3126,2781],"class_list":["post-18547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-connor-shaw","tag-mississippi-state-bulldogs","tag-sec","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-steve-spurrier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18548,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions\/18548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}