Bookmaker  +6½ -110

Posted at 8:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

Virginia Tech +6½ over South Carolina

Mercedes-Benz Stadium - Atlanta, GA

3:00 PM ET. South Carolina is being priced like a stable program when the truth is anything but. LaNorris Sellers has promise and Shane Beamer has raised the profile of the program, but the roster turnover is extreme. Five Gamecocks went in the first four rounds of the NFL Draft, leaving this year’s team with one of the lowest levels of returning defensive production in the SEC. On offense, Sellers is learning a new system while working behind an unsettled backfield after losing their feature runner. That’s a lot of moving parts.

The cracks showed in the Citrus Bowl when South Carolina, stripped of its NFL-bound players, lost outright to Illinois as a nine-point favorite. That wasn’t a fluke, it was a preview. This is a program without the depth to absorb those types of losses, and the market is still hanging numbers as if nothing has changed.

Virginia Tech enters with continuity and a clearer picture of what they are. They don’t have to dominate to stay inside this number, they just need to let South Carolina’s inexperience show itself over four quarters. The Hokies are getting priced like a middling ACC team stepping up in class, but the gap between these rosters isn’t what the spread suggests.

South Carolina is in transition, Virginia Tech is stable, and the market has inflated the chalk. That makes Virginia Tech plus the points is our play.

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