Fresh off a much-needed win over Louisville last Saturday, the Clemson football team must turn its focus to a Miami Hurricane team coming off an impressive win.
It had been a while since Clemson has been a single-digit favorite at home as they were last week, but the oddsmakers have rectified that this week, installing the Tigers as a whopping 19-point favorite over the Hurricanes.
The over/under is set at 46.5, which implies a score of around 33-14 in Clemson’s favor.
Even though I was correct that the under would hit in the Louisville game, I was wrong as far as Clemson hitting 30 points. Not only that, but if Clemson doesn’t lose three fumbles, 40 points were not out of the question.
The game is scheduled for 3:30 PM on ESPN and can also be streamed on FuboTV.
Miami’s defense has given up 45 points three times this season to Middle Tennessee State, Duke and Florida State.
If you believe in SP+, both the offense (79) and defense (56) for the Hurricanes are middle of the road to lower and the team has been disappointing overall, given the hype of the Mario Cristobal era and the supposed influence of NIL.
Can Clemson football cover a 19 point spread against Miami?
It’s difficult for me to give any team 19 points against this Clemson team. It’s certainly possible that Clemson wins by that margin, but the question is would you bet on it?
In this case, the answer for me is “no”, because I expect more of what we saw last week: A game plan that relies on the ground game of Will Shipley, Phil Mafah and D.J Uiagalelei, which not only uses the clock to shorten the game, but also minimizes the chances of a catastrophic mistake.
The other part of this equation is that this version of the Clemson defense has not been as dominant as previous versions and has a tendency to let down at times, especially with a multiple score lead.
My early lean is Miami +19 points.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change