Clemson Football: Is the Vegas spread too high vs. Syracuse?

The Clemson football team opened up as a heavy favorite vs. Syracuse according to Vegas. Is the spread for the match up too high?

The Clemson football team opened as a 24-point favorite against Syracuse and that line has trended upwards over the course of the past couple of days.

The Tigers, who just defeated the Texas A&M Aggies 24-10, are now 27.5-point favorites according to the newest lines.

Just a week ago, this match up was on the shortlist for ESPN College GameDay. Now, the Tigers are nearly 30 point favorites. What happened? Well, the answer is pretty clear: Syracuse was exposed against Maryland.

The Terrapins scored 63 points on the Orange defense and held Syracuse to just 20 points. It was 42-13 at the half.

So, the question is simple: Is the Vegas spread of nearly 30 points too high for Clemson football heading into this match up with Syracuse? The answer is no.

Syracuse is going to give a better effort in this game than it did against Maryland. The game is at home, it’s Homecoming and they’re going to look to get a bad taste out of their mouths. Even with those things considered, the Orange just aren’t good enough to beat Clemson football Saturday, in my opinion.

Syracuse misses Eric Dungey and there are questions in that secondary and in the linebacker group. Trevor Lawrence is going to take advantage of those mismatches. If they sell out to stopping the pass, Travis Etienne is going to eat up yardage on the ground.

The spread isn’t too high because Clemson is just that much better than Syracuse, in my opinion. This isn’t the same thing as last year.

The Orange have Clemson’s full attention- there aren’t any distractions- and they’re coming looking for a convincing victory. This is beginning to feel like a game that finishes with a 38-10, 45-17 or 49-20 outcome. All of those scores would be over the spread and right on the number. At this point, that is what most expect coming into this one.

Could Syracuse shock the world? Certainly. But, it would take the Tigers showing up unfocused and not ready to go and that just doesn’t seem likely at this point.