Kentucky at South Carolina 9/25/21 - College Football Picks & Predictions
The Kentucky Wildcats will continue their SEC campaign with a road trip to Williams Brice Stadium to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks. South Carolina started the year with back-to-back wins, a stomping of Eastern Illinois, and surviving a road trip to ECU, but then went on the road to #2 Georgia where outside of the 2:39 it took Georgia to score, trailed the whole game. Kentucky is 3-0 but hasn’t looked the part, surviving 28-23 against FCS Chattanooga to notch their third straight win to start the year.
Kentucky picked up Will Levis, out of Penn State, to come in and lead the offense. Levis has struggled with turnovers this year throwing four interceptions through three games, he has completed 64.6% of his passes for 800 yards and 7 touchdowns. Levis has led Kentucky to 36 points per game and averaging 480 yards of total offense through his first three games for the Wildcats.
The Kentucky run game has been effective thus far averaging 5.3 yards a carry and averaging 196 yards per game, leading the way is Chris Rodriguez who has totaled 392 yards and five touchdowns. Wan’Dale Robinson is a guy they like to get involved in different ways, he’s leading the team in receiving with 18 catches for 337 yards and 2 touchdowns, he transferred in from Nebraska earlier this year.
This Kentucky defense is the superior unit of the team, they’ve held opponents to just 275 yards of total offense and 20.3 points per game. Tyrell Ajian iced the win over Chattanooga with a 95 yard pick-six, just the second forced turnover of the season, and they’ll need to generate more takeaways as we enter the thick of SEC play.
South Carolina’s offense hasn’t been anything to write home about, other than the storyline of Zeb Noland. Noland played a few years of unremarkable football for Iowa State then came to South Carolina as a Grad-Assistant but due to COVID, had a year of eligibility left and was named the starter. He’s completing 56.3% of his passes for 396 yards but has thrown five touchdowns to just an interception.
South Carolina is averaging just 355.7 total yards and 26.3 points per game, they’re last time out they managed just 296 total yards and 13 points, seven of those coming in the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach. Granted, it was against one of the best defenses in the country but this offense has really struggled thus far.
The defense has done their part for the Gamecocks, they’ve held opponents to just 287.7 total yards per game and 26.3 points per game. The Georgia offense was too much for this defense, but they’ll have a much easier task at hand against a below-average Kentucky defense, and they’ve shown glimpses of defensive potential.
Betting Trends for vs
South Carolina has been bad offensively this season, they’re struggling to find a quarterback and haven’t run the ball effectively enough to win football games. But, the defense has been solid, and after a tough game against Georgia, they’re ready to send a message to the SEC that they will not be an easy out. Kentucky’s offense has really struggled this season, and Levis’ willingness to put the ball in danger is going to be a problem on the road. South Carolina is able to get something going in the run game, take the air out of the ball and win an ugly, low-scoring game at home. Final score prediction, South Carolina wins and covers ATS 28-24.