2017 Clemson Football Schedule: Predicting a Spread for every game

Friday, October 13th: @ Syracuse Orange

Clemson football beat Syracuse like a drum last season, blasting the Orange 54-0.

This year’s game will be back up in the Carrier Dome where former Syracuse coach Scott Shafer still claims that championship dreams go to die.

The Orange certainly have an identity under new coach Dino Babers. They are a fun-and-gun spread offense that looks to score fast. The problem, however, is on the defensive side of the ball.

Syracuse returns quarterback Eric Dungey, but will lose leading receiver Amba Etta-Towa and still doesn’t have a lot of talent up-front on the offensive line. They will return veterans Ervin Philips and Steve Ishmael, but they will need to score a lot of points to make up for the lack of production on the defense.

Defensively, the Orange were just putrid last season. Against FBS opponents, the lowest point total they gave up all season was 17 to Virginia Tech and 20 to Boston College. Other than those two games, almost everyone else put up “basketball” scores on them, including Pittsburgh who beat Syracuse 76-61 in the last game of the regular season.

I think Syracuse puts up a fight and some points as a result, but Clemson still wins this game fairly easily.

Look for a lot of guys to get playing time for the second week in a row and the Tigers to come away with a fairly painless win.

Spread: Clemson -30