Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Gerald J. Ford Stadium, Dallas, TX

Stream: ESPN

SMU -1 -109 over Wake Forest

12:00 PM EST. The market has already told you who wins this game. Wake Forest opened as a 1.5-point favourite, and the line has flipped all the way to SMU -1.5. That is a three-point move toward the home team, and it did not happen by accident. The money that matters is on SMU, and your -1 is a half point better than what the board is offering now. When a line moves through zero like that, it is telling you something. Listen to it.

SMU's offense is the reason. The Mustangs put up 51 points on Virginia Tech last week in a game that was never close, and they are among the best offences in the country. Kevin Jennings runs an attack that can score in bunches, and at home, in front of their own crowd, in a game that is effectively an elimination game for the ACC title race and the playoff, they are not going to be short of motivation. Wake Forest's defence has been good this season, but it has not faced an offence like this one on the road.

The other half of the bet is Wake Forest's quarterback. Gio Lopez has been very good this year, 24 total touchdowns to one interception, but he missed last week's game with a lower-body injury suffered against Virginia in Week 9, and today is his first game back, on the road, against an SMU defence that generates pressure. A quarterback coming off a lower-body injury is not the same quarterback, not in his first game back, not with a pass rush in his face. Lopez sat out against Merrimack as a precaution, but precaution does not make the legs fresh. SMU wins at home.

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