Florida State vs. Southern Miss prediction: College football picks

Florida State announced itself as a legitimate College Football Playoff contender with an emphatic victory over a top-5 team in a stand-alone, prime-time game in front of a massive national audience the night before a public holiday.

And while it took the Seminoles a few drives to get going, by the time they were through with LSU they had put the entire college football world on notice with a 45-24 master class that immediately got tongues wagging about Florida State’s place in the national championship conversation.

Such is the nature of Week 1.

With no other results or data to dive into yet, it’s hard not to get swept up by what we see in college football’s real opening weekend.

And it becomes even more challenging not to get carried away when a team with a massive profile like Florida State puts on that kind of show in that kind of spot.

There was nothing else to distract fans and bettors from the Seminoles dismantling of the Tigers.

Bookmakers were bracing themselves for the onslaught of FSU money that was about to show up.

As you’d expect, the line for Florida State’s next contest, a home game against Southern Miss, began to move pretty quickly after the win over LSU.

The Seminoles were already 29-point favorites in the lookahead market against the Golden Eagles, but that number began to trickle up past 30 points after the win at Camping World Stadium on Sunday night.

At the time of this writing, Southern Miss is a 31-point pooch for their trip to Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday night.

The easy thing to do here would be to just lay the lumber with Florida State.

The Seminoles offense looked unstoppable in the second half against LSU and are led by the second-favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, Jordan Travis, at quarterback.

If they could do that to LSU on a neutral field in Week 1, there should be no way that Southern Miss will be able to hang with them in front of a raucous crowd under the lights at Doak.

But bookmakers know that they’re going to take a lot of FSU money in this game and that means they can get away with charging a premium on the Seminoles in this spot. It’s another prime-time game at the end of a loaded college football slate, the bets will come.

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That means, in all likelihood, that the value in this matchup is going to be on Southern Miss.

But despair not, because there are reasons to like the Golden Eagles in this spot.

Led by Frank Gore Jr. at running back, this is an offense that loves to pound the rock behind one of the stronger offensive lines in the Group of 5.

An offense built to keep the ball on the floor is one that keeps the clock moving, which makes it a lot more difficult to cover a large number like this — especially with the new clock rules.

Defensively, the Golden Eagles stand very little chance to contain this offense, but that doesn’t mean the doors will get completely blown off.

Southern Miss returned its entire defensive line from last year and is led by Dan O’Brien, who is regarded as one of the sport’s up-and-coming defensive minds.

This unit stands a chance to get some stops and keep this game neat enough for a cover.