LSU -9.5 at Vanderbilt O/U 43.5 
Recommendation: LSU 
Saturday, September 11th – ESPNU

Vanderbilt wasn’t a good offensive team last year, averaging less than 17 points per game while gaining less than 300 yards of total offense against BCS conference competition. The Commodores are likely to be every bit as weak on the offensive side of the ball this year. Head coach Bobby Johnson quit in mid-July; a clear indication that he didn’t see many bright spots for this squad. Johnson’s replacement, career assistant Robbie Caldwell, has his work cut out for him to field a competitive team in 2010.  


Vanderbilt quarterback Larry Smith was a disaster last year, throwing only four touchdown passes while completing a dismal 46 percent of his passes. He has a weak receiving corps to work with, utterly devoid of SEC-caliber playmakers. Smith struggled for extended stretches against a mediocre Northwestern stop unit in the opener last Saturday, routinely missing wide open receivers. And facing a truly stout run defense like that of LSU, this is one game where the Commodores are absolutely going to need a strong performance from their signal caller in order to compete. Let’s not forget that the Commodores lost four offensive line starters to graduation in the offseason and return only nine combined career starts from last year – a very inexperienced unit facing a dominant front four.

The betting markets don’t trust Les Miles as a favorite in SEC play. Miles is just 6-18-3 ATS as league chalk dating back to the final few games of the 2005 campaign. And bettors certainly weren’t impressed by the Tigers’ second half meltdown at home against North Carolina last week, nearly blowing a three touchdown lead against the suspension-riddled Tar Heels. But LSU has had little trouble against Vanderbilt, winning all three meetings in the last six years by two touchdowns or more. And the Tigers own significant matchup edges in terms of overall team speed, defense and special teams. There’s a class difference between these two programs that simply isn’t reflected in this surprisingly low pointspread.

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