Vegas Play of the Day: Georgia at Tennessee

By Case Keefer (contact)

Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017 | 2 a.m.

We’ve entered the fourth season of the annual South Point-lined Play of the Day competition, effective July 1.

Starting bankrolls have reset to $10,000, with the maximum bet being to win $1,000 and the minimum wager $300. Ray Brewer won back-to-back titles in the 2015-2016 and 2016-17 seasons, after Taylor Bern prevailed in 2014-2015.

Tennessee plus-7.5 vs. Georgia: $550 to win $500

One of the oldest rules of sports betting is still a golden one: When everyone is looking one way, it pays to go the other.

Georgia is all of a sudden the hottest team on the board to bet on after last week’s 31-3 victory over Mississippi State as 3-point favorites. Tennessee couldn’t possibly be more of an afterthought following a brush with disaster in a 17-13 win over winless Massachusetts as 28-point favorites.

That’s made this line spiral several points out of control. Georgia is the better team, and deserves to be favored but not by more than a touchdown.

This is still an SEC road game, and even though the Bulldogs prevailed in their trip to Notre Dame 20-19 as 5-point underdogs earlier in the season, this will be a tougher environment. Neyland Stadium is significantly bigger than Notre Dame Stadium, and won’t be as full of traveling Georgia fans.

The Volunteeers should be given some slack for the performance against the Minutemen given the tough scheduling spot. They were coming off of a heart-breaking, last-second loss to Florida that made the game against Georgia all the more important.

Coach Butch Jones and his staff were surely not telling the team to look past Massachusetts, but it’s just as certain they were already working on stuff for the Bulldogs in practice. Georgia had its hands full with Mississippi State, meaning Tennessee is quite possibly the better-prepared team here.

That’s just another potential factor for why this shapes up as a close game.

Current Standings: Keefer (10-5-1, $12,055), Granger (6-6, $11,595), Grimala (4-4, $9,945), Brewer (8-10, $7,780)

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.