A road dog that keeps winning one-score games

3 things that decide this one

1. Kentucky lives in close games. The Wildcats are 5-1, and their last two wins were both 35-34: at South Carolina on October 3, then in overtime against a top-10 LSU team at home last week. That's a team comfortable inside a one-score margin, which is exactly where a +6.5 ticket wants to be.

1. They've already done it on the road in the SEC. The South Carolina win came away from Lexington, so this isn't a team that only shows up at Kroger Field. The jump from unranked to No. 15 in the AP poll came right after the LSU win.

1. Oklahoma's own big win was tight too. The Sooners beat Texas 27-24 last weekend. Good win, but a three-point game, and nothing in it says they're about to pull away from a ranked SEC opponent.

The number

Oklahoma -6.5 is the main line, with both sides sitting at 1.93-1.94 at Pinnacle. The moneyline shortened slightly toward the home side in the last 24 hours, 1.44 to 1.42, but the spread itself hasn't moved. Kentucky at 1.93 is roughly -108 in American terms. The total is 43.5, so a touchdown is a big share of the expected scoring.

Lean

Two straight one-point wins don't make Kentucky better than Oklahoma, but they make a finish inside a touchdown the likelier outcome. I lean Kentucky +6.5 at 1.93.