Point spread way too large

BATON ROUGE - LSU is a 12-point favorite to beat Virginia Tech on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium. I'm thinking about changing my original pick, which was a 13-9 LSU loss two weeks ago. But that's too many points.

The oddsmakers are overreacting to what LSU and Virginia Tech did last week. LSU rolled to a 45-0 win over a bad Mississippi State team that might not win three games this season. Virginia Tech, fighting a lot of emotion in its first game back from the massacre that took place last spring on its campus, struggled at times in a 17-7 win over East Carolina.

East Carolina, which went 7-6 last season, is a much better team than State. Virginia Tech will have a much lighter mental load going into this game, having its first, post-tragedy game in the books. It will likely be looser outside of its stadium as well. It will have less to lose as well as the No. 9 team playing the No. 2 team in Tiger Stadium.

LSU quarterback Matt Flynn was sacked three times at State, which does not have nearly the defense Tech does. This will be a low scoring game. This will be a close game.