4. ULM at Kentucky
LINE Kentucky -31
ATS PICK Kentucky
Time to be greedy-grouchy – the line moving from 29.5 to 31 shouldn’t matter, but of course every little bit helps.
ULM should be a whole lot better after a miserable 2020. It was a rebuilding year for the Warhawks, and it showed as the 0-10 team got rocked in game after game after game.
Things aren’t exactly going well if you’re losing to Texas State by 21 and South Alabama by 24.
New head coach Terry Bowden is a big upgrade, and again, the team should be better and stronger with more experience and more decent parts, but it’s about to run into a Kentucky team that’s going to open it up a bit and win very, very convincingly.
Full SEC snob disclosure, I thought the same thing about Tennessee against Bowling Green on Thursday night. The Vols had the improved offense, Bowling Green is miserable, and covering the 38 wasn’t going to be a big deal, and then everything came to a stop, Tennessee fumbled away a late chance to cover, and that was that.
Covering over 30 points isn’t easy, and this would be a stay-away game if it was up around that 38 the Vol-Falcon game was, but …
Kentucky is doing something wrong if it doesn’t roll at will here.
ULM still has to prove it can score more than 17 points on a regular basis, and it probably won’t get there here.
When the program wasn’t bad – when Caleb Evans was at quarterback – it had Florida State in trouble in 2019 and lost 45-44. It then went on to lose to Iowa State 72-20. This will be somewhere in between those two.
Kentucky is going to want to crank up the offense to see if this thing works, it should get to 40 points without a problem – although, big scoring days against mediocre teams hasn’t been a given so far under Mark Stoops – and this will get ugly in a big hurry.
Speaking of SEC snobbery …