Auburn-Georgia Betting Guide: How Good Is Bulldogs’ Offense?

Auburn-Georgia Betting Odds, Pick

• Spread: Georgia -14
• Over/Under: 52.5
• Time: 7 p.m. ET
• TV: ESPN

Since these two teams met in the SEC Championship Game last season — a blowout win by Georgia — they've headed in complete opposite directions.

The Bulldogs were inches away from winning a national title against Alabama and are firmly in the College Football Playoff discussion again, while Auburn lost to UCF in the Peach Bowl and has struggled to find its offensive identity throughout 2018.

This is a tough spot for Georgia, though, coming off an SEC East-clinching win over Kentucky. The Dawgs have College Football Playoff aspirations, so they may not look ahead, but it's hard to get up for a third-straight game after beating divisional foes Florida and Kentucky.

Market Moves for Auburn-Georgia

By Danny Donahue

This line has been hovering around two touchdowns all week. After opening at -13.5, Georgia was quickly bet up to -14.5. Since, Auburn money has brought the line back to -14, where it stands heading into Friday.

Georgia has received 63% of bets and 61% of dollars (Check updated betting data here).

As for the total, it’s risen thanks to some heavy betting on the over. Sixty-nine percent of bets accounting for 89% of dollars have moved the over/under from from 50 to 52.5 at most books.

Georgia's Offense Is Back on Track

By Steve Petrella

After calls to go with true freshman Justin Field, Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm is more than back on track. I don't think those calls were ever serious inside the program.

Fromm hasn't had to do a ton as the ground game continues to thrive, but he's thrown for 353 yards and four scores while completing 70% of his passes in the last two games against Florida and Kentucky.

Georgia's offense ranks top 10 in both passing and rushing S&P+, and it's only getting better.

Auburn's Offense, Meanwhile…

By Steve Petrella

Gus Malzahn has won a lot of games and coached some great offenses at Auburn. But this year, he's not playing to his strengths.

The Tigers were finally effective in their last two drives against Texas A&M last week when they played with pace and didn't let the Aggies substitute. They played with four and five wide receivers and spread the field. Auburn went 129 total yards on 10 plays in two scoring drives.

Malzahn acknowledged this week how effective it was, but didn't give any indication that will continue. My guess is it will, and Auburn will keep the Bulldogs defense on its twos.

As Evan and John detail in the trends below, Malzahn tends to do well on the road and when expectations aren't high. I think we see that play out on Saturday.

Throw Our Your Metrics

By Ken Barkley

It’s Week 11, and this is the first time Auburn has been an underdog this season. That’s pretty amazing considering how disappointing the Tigers have been week to week. And not only are they underdogs, they’re getting 14! Such a weird spot.

That's why…

for me, it’s Georgia or pass. My raw power ratings say this number is just a little big (I have it at about 12.5), but everything about Auburn is overrated, to me. It was (correctly) downgraded hard in the market after failing to cover by huge margins against Southern Miss, Mississippi State, and Tennessee in the middle of the season.

It may seem like the Tigers have rebounded the past two weeks, covering small numbers against Ole Miss and Texas A&M, but both score-lines are incredibly deceiving.

Ole Miss actually had more first downs and the teams were about even in total yards, but Ole Miss was awful in the red zone and the Tigers had a defensive touchdown to blow the game open. There really wasn’t much between those teams, and Ole Miss isn’t very good.

Then against Texas A&M, Auburn was down 10 with seven minutes left before basically stealing a win with a furious rally late in the game. Auburn had 21 rushes for 19 yards in the game, and now faces a Georgia front that’s even better. How’s that going to play out?

Meanwhile, when you watch Georgia, you see a team that’s getting better week to week in big ways. I have been pessimistic about the Dawgs because their first six games showed me so little compared to last year’s team.

It’s possible that with all the defensive production needing to be replaced, this year’s team took a bit longer to come together (and Jake Fromm is playing much better than he was earlier).

That’s why I’m disregarding the raw numbers here. All the metrics that are feeding those numbers don’t account for Georgia’s continued improvement, and might be giving Auburn too much credit given the smoke-and-mirrors way they’ve been pulling out these wins.

In the end, with Georgia beating down two teams on national TV in the past two weeks, it’s doubtful there’s any great line value here with them either.

At 14, it’s a pass. If Auburn money were to come in and shorten this under two touchdowns, it would probably be worth a small bet on Georgia for me.

Trends to Know

By John Ewing

Ranked SEC teams have let bettors down when facing unranked conference opponents. According to our Bet Labs data, these top-25 SEC teams have gone 96-113-5 (45.9%) against the spread when favored by 10 or more points since 2005.

By Evan Abrams

In Malzahn’s career at Auburn and his one year at Arkansas State, he is 18-8 ATS on the road against conference opponents, profiting bettors 9.0 units, making him the fifth-most profitable coach in FBS since 2012.

Malzahn simply dominates the best teams year in and year out. Since 2012, Malzahn is 21-13 ATS when facing a ranked opponent, profiting bettors 6.6 units and making him the second-most profitable coach in FBS behind Tom Herman, who is 12-2-1 ATS.