Gamecocks Open As Early Betting Favorites vs Mississippi State

South Carolina's Football team earned back some national respect this weekend, as evidenced in part by the early betting lines for their week four matchup.

For the second straight season, Shane Beamer and the South Carolina Gamecocks have started their season 1-2. The main difference, however, between both of these starts is that last year, it felt like there was very little improvement on either side of the ball from week one to week three, but in 2023, there's a feeling of optimism regarding the progress that's been shown in certain areas of the game.

South Carolina also has another silver lining regarding their difficult start to the schedule: they are battle-tested and fully understand the weaknesses of their team. That could come into play this weekend against a Mississippi State team who just played their first SEC opponent in LSU and got waxed, losing 41-14 and only accumulating 201 yards of total offense.

That performance by the Bulldogs, combined with the competitive fight South Carolina brought to the defending back-to-back national champions yesterday afternoon, has oddsmakers at FanDuel liking the Gamecocks position in this matchup, setting the early spread at -4.5 points in favor of Carolina. It's only the second time in their last eight games that the Gamecocks have been named the betting favorites in their respective matchup, with the other time coming in week two when South Carolina took on the Furman Paladins. Fun fact: it's the only third time in his career that Shane Beamer's squad has been listed as the betting favorite when playing a home conference game.

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