When the initial spread came out for Florida and Ole Miss and the Gators were the favorites, a lot of people started looking around, wondering, “What does Vegas know that the rest of us don’t?” Florida opened up as 3.5 point favorites despite the fact that Ole Miss is ranked No. 4 in the country while Florida just became ranked this past week.
But as we say from time to time, there is a reason why they build skyscrapers in the desert and Vegas is banking hard that their initial projections are correct.
Public money pours into Ole Miss even though Florida is the favorite
The public has instantly gravitated towards Ole Miss. One estimate has over 75% of moneyline bets streaming towards the Rebels and up to 85% of bets taking the spread in favor of the Rebels. And yet, despite all this money going towards Ole Miss, the line has not budged, and as of Friday, the line is still 3.5 points in favor of the Gators.
So what does Vegas know that the rest of the public doesn’t seem to know? Because for Vegas not to budge on the line hints that they are feeling pretty confident about their initial projections. And while Jon Sumrall may think Vegas is on drugs, history would say that when Vegas takes a swing like this, they tend to be right.
Since 1978, there have been four other instances where a top-five team was considered the underdog against a team outside the top 20. The top-five team is 0-4 in all those previous meetings. The last time this occurred was in 2021, when No. 3 Oregon was the underdog against No. 23 Utah.
Utah won 38-7.
So again, what does Vegas know that nobody else seems to know?
Well, for starters, the 247 Talent Composite would tell you that Florida has the better roster. It’s not by much, but on paper the roster for Ole Miss isn’t considered better than Florida’s. Throw in the health status of Ole Miss RB Kewan Lacy, along with the fact that this game is at The Swamp, and you start to get a picture of how Florida could actually pull this off.
Of course, the Gators have some massive question marks on defense they will need to answer, but the belief seems to be that Florida has enough offensive firepower of its own to keep pace.
We’ll obviously see if Vegas is right.
Just know they tend to be right more than they are wrong.
Add us as a preferred source on Google