I'm not a bona fide professional but I used to be in on alot of college football action when it was still easy enough to have an online account at Pinnacle, BetJamaica, and a few of the other books. In 06 I started out with a meager $25 and by the time I cashed out everything last spring I had over $1,200 in the accounts.
Anyway, this is probably a fair spread. We are bad and I'll give you all that but MSU is bad on the road this year. Their road spread record is 1-2 with them covering against LSU a couple of weeks ago. They got beat 34-24 but the line on the game was 24. On the flipside UT hasn't covered a single spread at home this year. It was 33 at close against UAB and we won by 32. We were +7 against Florida and we all know how that turned out and against Northern Illinois we were -16.5 and won by 4. Mississippi State is 9-4-1 in their last 14 SEC road games too.
I don't look into all of the numbers that gets things mind boggling but if you were a better this week this would just about be a "no play." Too unpredictable and Vegas is literally gambling on the fact that alot of people will bet UT because they are at home and how they have faired traditionally against MSU.
Just a note as well this past weekend Vandy was only -1 at Mississippi State and the whole world was on Vandy and we saw what happened. These Vegas books didn't get rich by being stupid. They may have some lines off but alot of times if it looks too good to be true it probably is.