Game Analysis

Strong Opinion – Clemson (-16)  34   FLORIDA STATE  12

DJ Uiagaleilei has not been good for Florida State, and he won’t play against his old team this week. As unimpressive as DJU has been (0.6 yards per pass play worse than an average QB) he’s likely a lot better than his backup Brock Glenn, who has completed just 19 of his 55 career passes and has averaged a pathetic 3.2 yards per pass play.

Uiagaleilei averaged 7.8 yards per pass play last season at Oregon State (against teams that would allow 5.7 yppp to an average quarterback) and was clearly better than average in his career even with his mediocre play at Clemson. Perhaps it’s Mike Norvell’s system that is the problem and only the special talents of Jordan Travis could make Norvell look good.

Norvell inherited James Blackman as his quarterback after Blackman’s productive freshman season in 2019 (6.7 yards per pass play and 0.4 yppp better than average after accounting for opposing defenses). Blackman was terrible in Norvell’s system in 2020 before Travis took over and backups Rodemaker and Purdy were even worse that season when Travis was out for a couple of games.

In 2021 Norvell experimented with Joe Milton at quarterback before finally settling on Travis and Milton was horrible in Norvell’s system, averaging just 4.7 yppp on 149 pass plays against teams that would allow 6.5 yppp to an average QB. Milton averaged 7.6 yppp on 525 pass plays at Tennessee after leaving FSU, which is telling.

in 2022, Travis was entrenched as the starter and that was the case last season until he got injured late in the season. Rodemaker and Glenn combined for just 4.5 yppp in 4 starts against teams that would allow 6.9 yppp to an average quarterback.

In 5 previous seasons under Mike Norvell the quarterbacks other than Jordan Travis have combined for just 4.6 yards per pass play on 490 pass plays while facing teams that would combine to allow 6.5 yppp to an average quarterback (weighted by how many passes were thrown against each team and whether the game were home, road, or neutral, which is always the case). That is a large sample and I’ll assume that Glenn will play at that level even though he’s been much worse.

Clemson’s defense isn’t as good as it normally is but they’re good enough to defend Glenn.

Clemson started the season with just 3 points against Georgia, but the offense has averaged 55 points in 3 games since the opener, as it appears as if head coach Dabo Swinney has finally taken the reins off of OC Garrett Riley and let him run his offense rather than the “Clemson offense”.

Florida State’s defense has been disappointing thus far, rating at 0.1 yards per play worse than average (5.9 yppl allowed to teams that would average 5.8 yppl against an average team), and Clemson should score enough points to distance themselves from the Seminoles in this game.

Clemson is a Strong Opinion at -16.5 or less.