Clemson Football: The picks are in! Staff picks for week 4

Each week this season the RubbingtheRock.com staff will pick the score of the Clemson football game against the spread and we’ll also pick a wild card game in a “friendly” competition.

Everyone picked Clemson to beat Louisiana Tech, but John Chancey was the only one to pick the Tigers to cover and suffered for it.

The points race looks like this:

Houston  +81.82
Marty +72.73
Beef -118.18
Chancey -309.09

Without further ado, here are the picks for week 4.

Houston Burnett (4-2, 3-2 ATS)

Remember in 2011 when Virginia Tech was a Top 10 team but ended up getting suffocated TWICE by a pretty subpar Clemson defense? That’s called a match up issue. And that’s what Wake Forest has been dealing with for the last 13 rounds with Coach Swinney at the helm. Wake Forest is a good team, capable of winning. But there are too many things that jump out to me, especially on the lines of scrimmage that will largely be the reason why I believe they will fall to the Tigers this week.

Houston’s wild card pick is Rutgers +7.5 against Iowa.

Casey “The Beef” Cregan (3-3, 2-3 ATS)

Clemson has (fixable) issues defensively and is traveling to Winston-Salem to face a rejuvenated Sam Hartman and Wake Forest.  I’m nervous about Christian Beal-Smith running the…WHAT?…he’s not there anymore? Huh.  Ok, well AT Perry is still there and they do have some quality WRs for Hartman to throw to.  If that slow-mesh style of play isn’t going to have much of a rushing attack though, Clemson can pin their ears back and attack Hartman all day!

Casey’s wild card pick is Syracuse -9 vs. Virginia.

John Chancey (2-4,  1-4 ATS)

Dabo Swinney has never lost to Wake Forest. The Deacons can’t run the ball, and Clemson has the 6th best run defense in the country. Wake’s back seven on defense are not quick. If DJ is accurate, the receivers will feast. If the O-line plays well, Shipley will continue his streak of multiple touchdowns.

John’s wild card pick is TCU -2.0 at SMU.

Marty Coleman (4-2, 3-2 ATS)

The last time Clemson scored less than 30 points in Winston-Salem Tommy Bowden was their coach.  That said, the quarterbacks since then were mostly Boyd, Watson and Lawrence, so we’ll see if D.J. Uiagalelei can do the same thing as his predecessors.  Either way, I think Clemson covers this spread easily, but Wake will get theirs.

Marty’s wild card pick is UNC -1.5 against Notre Dame.

So, there you have it, all four predict a Clemson football victory and all four pick Clemson to cover the spread against Wake Forest.