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The SEC’s lone remaining Thursday night matchup, Auburn at Kansas State, opened in Vegas with the Tigers as nine-point favorites.
Of the eight games involving SEC teams this week, it’s the only matchup featuring a single-digit point spread.
RELATED: Week 3: What happened to you on Saturday
Three of the four teams involved in the classic SEC tilts from Saturday (‘Cats-Gators, Bulldogs-Gamecocks) either are off or get relatively easy opponents — South Carolina, the first team to play three conference games, opened as a 21.5-point favorite against Vanderbilt — but Florida doesn’t get any such reprieve.
The Gators’ reward for knocking off a pesky Kentucky team in triple overtime? A trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala., against a Tide team sure to be ornery after what amounts to three weeks of preseason. Alabama opened as a 17.5-point favorite, which is two or three points higher than I’d figured entering Florida’s second game last night.
Georgia faces the largest spread, needing 41 points to cover in a home game against hapless Troy.
Here are the rest of the Week 4 lines. Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tennessee are off.
| Matchup | Kickoff Time* | Line# |
|---|---|---|
| Auburn at Kansas State (Thursday) | 7:30 p.m. | Auburn -9 |
| Troy at Georgia | Noon | Georgia -40 |
| Texas A&M at SMU | 3:30 p.m. | Texas A&M -28 |
| Florida at Alabama | 3:30 p.m. | Alabama -17.5 |
| Indiana at Missouri | 4 p.m. | Missouri -14 |
| Northern Illinois at Arkansas | 7 p.m. | Arkansas -10 |
| Mississippi State at LSU | 7 p.m. | LSU -11 |
| South Carolina at Vanderbilt | 7:30 p.m. | South Carolina -21.5 |
*Based on Eastern Time Zone
#Based on CG Technology lines as of 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday
Ole Miss and Kentucky are 3-0 against the spread. Auburn is 2-0 against the spread after the Tigers didn’t play last week. LSU is the only other SEC team unbeaten against the Vegas line after landing on the number (minus-31) against Louisiana-Monroe for a 2-0-1 record.
Vanderbilt is 0-3 against the spread despite beating Massachusetts. Alabama is 0-2 one week after its game against Florida Atlantic ended in a no contest — all bets were refunded because lightning forced an early ending. (Vegas counts the game as complete if the teams have played at least 55 minutes of game time.)
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
