College Football Betting: Vanderbilt at South Carolina

The South Carolina Gamecocks begin life after Steve Spurrier hosting the Vanderbilt Commodores at Williams-Brice Stadium. It’s also a sign that the Palmetto State is getting back to normal after a week of record rain and massive flooding. That’s why the Gamecocks had to play a ‘home game’ in Baton Rouge, Louisiana last week. There’s always ugly stories in college football but the response of the entire LSU community to the displaced South Carolina teams and fans was not one of them. The Bayou Bengals showed consummate class in doing everything to make South Carolina feel welcome. LSU showed much more class than the NCAA–their Heisman Trophy candidate running back Leonard Fournette wanted to auction off his game worn jersey with proceeds going to South Carolina flood relief. The NCAA said he couldn’t.

Anyway, life would have been much more normal this week had the venerable Steve Spurrier not resigned effective immediately. There are questions about the timing but it likely is a sign that he’s just sick of it–sick of the grind and sick of dealing with a team that just doesn’t have the talent that he’s used to working with. Of course that is largely his doing–players don’t recruit themselves. So it’s now Shawn Elliott’s team. It’s a sign of how far the Gamecocks have fallen that they’re just 1.5 point favorites over Vanderbilt on their home field.

College football is largely a game of preparation and there’s no way the Gamecocks can be properly prepared for this after the events of the last few weeks. The flood was disruptive enough to the team’s schedule–the Spurrier retirement was stunning and unexpected. Vanderbilt is a ‘meat and potatoes’ type team and that’s just so effective in the rugged SEC. But they’ve been able to prepare for this game with no emotional upheaval. It’s been business as usual for Vandy. They’ve got a decent defense and that’s helped them to a 3-1-1 ATS record this year. Vandy wins outright as the post Steve Spurrier era gets off to a bad start for South Carolina.

BET VANDERBILT +1.5 OVER SOUTH CAROLINA