The Georgia Bulldogs (2-0, 0-0 SEC) travel to meet the Kentucky Wildcats (1-1, 0-1) Saturday at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET (ABC/ESPN+). Let’s analyze BetMGM Sportsbook’s college football odds around the Georgia vs. Kentucky odds, and make our expert college football picks and predictions.

The top-ranked Bulldogs play their 1st true road game of the season in the SEC opener. Georgia roughed up a ranked Clemson team 34-3 on a neutral field in Atlanta on Aug. 31, easily covering a 10.5-point spread as the Under (50) cashed. Then, the Dawgs thrashed FCS Tennessee Tech 48-3 last Saturday, failing to cover as a 54.5-point favorite as the Under (68.5) again hit.

The Wildcats opened with a 31-0 win over Southern Miss to cover as 24.5-point number in the opener as the Under (49) cashed, but it was annihilated at home in the conference opener by South Carolina, falling 31-6 as a 9.5-point favorite as the Under (40.5) again cashed.

Georgia has won 14 straight in this series dating back to Nov. 21, 2009, and Kentucky has won at home against the Dawgs since Nov. 4, 2006. QB Brock Vandagriff, who played for UGA on the 2021 and 2022 national title teams, was 3 1/2 the last time the Wildcats beat the Dawgs at home.

– US LBM Coaches Poll: Conducted by the American Football Coaches Association and USA TODAY Sports

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Georgia at Kentucky odds

Provided by BetMGM Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list of college football odds. Lines last updated at 10:45 a.m. ET.

• Moneyline (ML): Georgia -3000 (bet $3,000 to win $100) | Kentucky +1250 (bet $100 to win $1,250)
• Against the spread (ATS): Georgia -23.5 (-105) | Kentucky +23.5 (-115)
• Over/Under (O/U): 44.5 (O: -110 | U: -110)

Georgia at Kentucky picks and predictions

Prediction

Georgia 38, Kentucky 17

Moneyline

Georgia (-3000) will cost you 30 times your potential return, which means you’d need to risk $100 for every $3.33 won. It shouldn’t need to be said, but there is no value in betting such heavy favorites, no matter how certain a victory looks to be.

PASS.

Against the spread

Although KENTUCKY +23.5 (-115) was hot garbage last week, and it struggled to move the ball, this is a rivalry game, and teams tend to bring their best when facing the best.

Kentucky suffered just a 16-6 loss against Georgia in the most recent game in Lexington Nov. 19, 2022, and while the Wildcats haven’t been the Dawgs in a while, they are 4-1 ATS in the past 5 meetings.

The concern is that Georgia -23.5 (-105) is nasty on defense, so UK needs to be much better than it was last week when South Carolina moved the ball well on the ground against it.

Over/Under

OVER 44.5 (-110) might be the best play on the board.

While Georgia’s defense is strong, as usual, it wouldn’t be surprising in the least to see the Dawgs do the heavy lifting and get this one across the finish line with little help from the Wildcats.

While the Under is 2-0 for both teams to date, this is an awfully low number.

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CNN
 — 

On the morning of the shooting at a Winder, Georgia, high school that left four people dead, authorities were “actively looking” for the teenage suspect after the school received a warning call from his mom – but there was a mix-up and they weren’t able to get to him fast enough, according to the Barrow County sheriff.

Before last week’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School, Colt Gray, 14, apologized to his mother, Marcee Gray, in an alarming, cryptic text that prompted the mother to warn the school that something could be wrong.

“I’m sorry, mom,” the text read.

The mother then called the school and asked administrators to check on her son. That’s when authorities started searching for Colt Gray, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN affiliate WXIA.

“She did speak to someone in the school, and we were actively looking for him,” Smith said. “I am not aware of her saying he is going to do this, or he has planned this, but there were some messages back and forth,” the sheriff added.

A resource officer went to look for the boy, but there was another student in the same class with “almost identically the same name,” and both he and Colt Gray weren’t inside the classroom at the time, according to the sheriff.

“He went to the bathroom with a student that has the almost same name – that’s who they think we’re looking for,” Smith said.

Smith said the officers thought they had caught up to Colt Gray in time, but they were actually speaking to the other student. “As we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, the shooting starts,” Smith told WXIA.

Authorities allege Colt fired an AR-15-style rifle inside the high school, killing two teachers and two students. Nine others who were injured – eight students and one teacher – are expected to recover, authorities said.

Newly obtained emergency recordings and dispatch records from the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office capture the chaos and panic that unfolded both inside the school as an active shooter was reported and outside it as worried parents received panicked texts from their teenagers.

The deadly attack on September 4 marked the 45th school shooting in 2024 and the deadliest US school shooting since the March 2023 rampage at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Colt Gray, who authorities say confessed to the Winder high school attack, is charged with four counts of felony murder and will be tried as an adult. His attorney, Alfonso Kraft Jr., declined to comment Wednesday when reached by phone.

His father, Colin Gray, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children after authorities accused him of knowingly allowing his son to have a weapon, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. CNN has reached out to Colin Gray’s attorneys.

On the morning of the shooting, a 10-minute call was placed from Marcee Gray’s phone to the school at 9:50 a.m. ET, the Washington Post reported.

Colt Gray had left his Algebra 1 class around 9:45 a.m. ET, student Lyela Sayarath, who was sitting next to him in class, previously told CNN.

She said a person who later came to the class looking for Colt Gray confused him with another student. “An administrator comes in asking for the kid that sits next to me but mistakes him for … my friend,” Lyela said.

The first call for the shooting came in from a “RapidSOS” device at 10:22 a.m. ET, computer-aided dispatch reports released by Barrow County on Friday show.

“Active shooter!” an officer is heard yelling in one audio clip while speaking with a dispatcher, who repeats the phrase back to him. Another officer can be heard responding calmly, “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”

Two minutes later, authorities had the suspect’s name as “Colt” and one student was dead, according to the reports.

At 10:30 a.m., the suspect was “in custody, not injured,” the reports show. Fifteen minutes later, the reports show one person was dead in a hallway and three were dead in another hallway.

An officer, sounding slightly out of breath, asks the dispatcher to “roll EMS.” She is heard confirming emergency medical services were en route to the high school.

When a woman who identified herself as Colt’s aunt found out about the text he had sent, she made a tearful 911 call that morning just after 11:45 a.m. ET. Sobbing, she told a Barrow County 911 operator she was afraid her nephew was involved in the school shooting at Apalachee High School, according to a recording released Friday.

“My mom just called me and said that Colt texted his mom, my sister and his dad that he was sorry, and they called the school and told the counselor to go get him immediately,” the woman told the operator. “And then she said she saw that there’s been a shooting, and I’m just worried it was him.”

The woman then shared her and her sister’s phone numbers with the 911 operator, adding that she’d prefer they call his mom first “because I’ve been trying to get through to somebody.”

“I’m just so worried what’s going to happen,” the woman told the operator.

Meanwhile, a school counselor had informed Marcee Gray that her son had made references to school shootings, she told ABC News, prompting her and the teen’s grandfather to travel 200 miles from Fitzgerald to Winder, Georgia.

Parents called 911 the day of the shooting concerned about the safety of their children, the new recordings reveal.

“A parent is on the phone with their child,” an officer urgently says in one recording. “They are in the art room, locked up.”

A male caller told a dispatcher in another recording that his daughter, a school psychologist, was working with a student in a trailer “next to where the shooting was happening.” He said his daughter tried to hide behind a desk with the student.

“I want them to be aware that she’s in a trailer and she can’t lock the doors and if they can check on the trailers … hopefully, they can check and get her out,” the man is heard saying.

The dispatcher confirmed whether the student was with the psychologist, to which the caller responds, “yes, and she didn’t want to call, she didn’t want to make any noise.”

The Georgia Bulldogs have failed to make the NCAA tournament since 2015 and have had no tournament success since 1996 but could this year be the change in the right direction? They have a top ten recruiting class this season as they have two five-stars and two three-star recruits.

They are bringing in power forward Asa Newell and center Somto Cyril who will share the front court together for the Bulldogs next season. Their top transfer is Tyrin Lawrence who played for Vanderbilt this past season. These three prospects have a chance to be drafted in the 2025 NBA Draft so let’s dive into their games and how they fit with each other.

With their potential top-10 pick, Newell played for Montverde Academy where he won a national championship this past season in the Chipotle Nationals. He was their starting power forward that brought a ton of versatility to the lineup. Newell is very skilled with two-way potential. He can make jumpers consistently, be an above the rim finisher and shows flashes off the dribble.

Defensively he does a very good job of being a valuable secondary rim protector while being capable of defending out in space. His mobility and tools paired with his talent makes him an enticing prospect. On the other hand Newell needs to add strength as he has a thin frame, struggles to finish through contact and is not a great post defender quite yet.

With their other five-star recruit in Cyril they are getting a physically imposing center that dominates the paint on both ends of the floor. He stands at 6-foot-10 and has a very long wingspan. Cyril spent a couple years in the Overtime Elite League where he was named the defensive player of the year this past season. With that being said he will obviously be a defensive presence in the interior as he does a great job at protecting the rim at a high level. This past season in OTE he averaged 3.3 blocks per game while also altering a ton of shots at the rim. 

Offensively he’s a bit raw and doesn’t have a ton of perimeter skill, but he does offer vertical floor spacing and is an elite lob threat with his explosive athleticism at 6-foot-10. He can be a play finisher and do the dirty work to generate second chance points. He can fill a lot of the holes that Newell has and vice versa so the big man duo should fit very well next to each other at Georgia.

Their incoming transfer in Lawrence will play a major role for Georgia this upcoming season. He’s a fifth year senior that played all four years for Vanderbilt. He was a starter in 80 out of the 105 games he played there. Although his 3-point percentage isn’t ideal, he’s a much better outside shooter than his past season percentage suggests. He’s a good shooter off the catch that showed the ability to make difficult shots off the dribble.

The 13-point scorer is capable of scoring the ball at all three levels while also consistently improving as a perimeter defender. He’s not a very good playmaker but that’s okay as he has a clear role on the team as a scorer and a capable defender. His leadership and being a college vet should pair well with the incoming five-star recruits.

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