Game Analysis

1-Star Best Bet – Clemson Team Total Under (28.5 -115)

Alternate play is game Under (47.5) at 46 or more

Strong Opinion – NC STATE (+10.5) 19   Clemson  21

Coming into this season I had expected Clemson’s offense to be considerably worse than it’s been in recent years. It wasn’t so much losing the NFL’s #1 overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence as much as it was losing some skill position players that I didn’t think could be easily replaced. All-American RB Travis Etienne certainly has some value as a runner, but it was 588 receiving yards at 9.6 yards per target that was irreplaceable. The other running backs had combined for just 6.2 yards per target the previous two seasons and only 7 total targets at 6.7 YPT so far this season. That’s a difference of 0.42 yards per pass play, which equates to 1.5 points per game. The other key departures were receivers Amari Rodgers and Cornell Powell, who averaged a combined 10.6 yards on 15 targets per game last season. The rest of the wide receivers with 10 or more targets for the season combined for just 7.3 YPT on 120 targets. Getting Justyn Ross back (he missed last season) was expected to help but he’s averaged only 9.9 yards per catch and 6.6 YPT so far this season and doesn’t appear to be his old self.

Clemson’s rushing attack has been a bit worse than average thus far (4.8 yards per rushing play against teams that would allow 4.9 yprp to an average team) and the only game in which they’ve averaged more than 3.8 yprp was against FCS team South Carolina State. New starting quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei played well in two starts last season with better weapons around him, but he’s been horrible so far this season – averaging just 4.6 yards per pass play against teams that would allow 5.8 yppp to an average quarterback. Uiagalelei now has 213 career pass plays and he’s averaged just 6.2 yppp against teams that would allow 6.3 yppp to an average quarterback. That’s a big enough sample size to conclude that this year’s Clemson pass attack is not close to being as good as the recent editions and the rushing attack is mediocre too.

NC State lost their best defensive player Payton Wilson to a season ending injury and starting safety Cyrus Fagan is also out for the year. I calculate Wilson’s value at 1.6 points, which is a lot for a defensive player, but the Wolfpack gave up just 138 total yards at 2.6 yppl and 7 points last week to Furman (1.6 yppl better than an average FBS defense would do) and they’ve yielded just 10.3 points and 240 total yards per game (at 4.0 yppl) in 3 games this season and are still a very good defense.

The market is still treating Clemson as if they have an elite offense despite plenty of evidence to the contrary and my ratings favor the Tigers by just 2.2 points and 40 total points. However, all of the value on the NC State side and the under is due to my projection of Clemson’s offense scoring far less than the market expects. Thus, the best play is on the Tigers team total under.

The Clemson Team Total Under 28 or more is a 1-Star Best Bet and NC State is a Strong Opinion at +10 or more.