The 2nd ranked Clemson Tigers take on the Pittsburgh Panthers in this year’s Dr. Pepper Atlantic Coast Conference championship game on Saturday 12/1/18 at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Clemson is unbeaten this season at 12-0 while Pittsburgh finished their year with a 7-5 overall record but were 6-2 in conference play to clinch a spot in the finals.
The Clemson Tigers clinched their second perfect season in the last three years. A victory over the Pittsburgh Panthers would give them their fourth straight ACC title and make them the first to win four in a row since ACC divisional play was introduced in 2005. A win would also help them secure a fourth consecutive appearance in the College Football Playoff.
Freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence completed 66.2% of his passes and threw for a total of 2,488 passing yards with 22 touchdowns and 4 interceptions during the regular season. Sophomore Travis Etienne leads Clemson’s rushing attack with 1,307 rushing yards with 19 touchdowns scored. Wide receiver Tee Higgins has caught for a total of 766 yards with 8 scores.
Pittsburgh will try to break a streak in the ACC as they are not only representing the Coastal Division for the first time in the title game but they will also try to snap the Atlantic Division’s string of seven straight victories in the ACC title game. To do that though, they will have to defy the odds and by odds, we mean literally as the Panthers opened as a 20 point underdog and with each days passing, they have become bigger dogs. As of 11/28/18 at sportsbetting.ag, Pittsburgh is a +27.5 underdog in this title game.
Kenny Pickett has thrown for 1,825 passing yards with 12 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Pickett completed 62.3% of his passes during the season. Qadree Ollison leads the Panthers with 1,134 yards on the ground as well as 10 rushing touchdowns. Taysir Mack leads the team with 489 receiving yards while Maurice Ffrench leads Pittsburgh with 6 receiving touchdowns.
Clemson is 5-0 SU in their last 5 games played while Pittsburgh is 4-1 SU in their last five games played. These teams have met only once before on November 12, 2016 and the Panthers won that game 43-42. But the Tigers will remember that game not just because they lost it but because they never lost again that season and went on to win the national championship.
Pittsburgh is no pushover. Although they were 7-5 this season, three of their losses came to ranked teams belonging to other conferences. In the ACC, the Panthers went 6-2 to get to this point. But now they are a massive spread underdog to a Clemson team that has gone 12-0 for the second time in three years.
Picking the winner isn’t the question in this game really. Clemson is hands down the better team and is playing better football right now. I mean they are just blowing away their opposition. I think Clemson wins but I’m not even entertaining the moneyline in this matchup.
The Clemson Tigers are 6-6 ATS in 12 games this season but they are 5-2 ATS in their last seven games played. The Pittsburgh Panthers are 8-4 ATS this season and they are an impressive 6-1 ATS in their last seven games played.
Clemson is 7-1 ATS in their last 8 December games and are 5-1 ATS in their last 6 conference games. The Tigers are also 10-2 ATS in their last dozen games at a neutral site. Meanwhile, the Panthers are 5-1 ATS in their last six conference games, 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games against teams with winning records but only 1-5 ATS in their last six games played at a neutral venue.
There are several reasons why Pittsburgh is tempting at +27.5. The Clemson Tigers are 2-8 ATS since September 2017 as a favorite of at least 21 points. This season, the Tigers are 1-6 ATS in the same spot. On the other hand, Pittsburgh has been an underdog of more than 25 points only five times since 1997. They went 2-3 SU in those five games but covered the spread in all five games. The Panthers were underdogs by at least 21 points just once during the regular season. They lost that game 14-19 to Notre Dame last October 13th.
27.5 points is plenty of points to lay the chalk. But the Panthers don’t have a passing game that is going to challenge the Clemson defense. The Panthers rank 120th in the nation in passing yards per game. As for their running game, the Panthers’ lead rusher Qadree Ollison has his best games against some of the low ranked rush defenses in FBS. Against elite defensive teams like UCF and Notre Dame, Ollison rushed for only 49 and 50 yards, respectively. So do we expect him to have a big game against Clemson’s defense which led the nation in allowing just 2.23 yards per carry and which ranked second in college football with 84.8 rushing yards allowed per game? I don’t think so.
On the other end of the field, the Clemson offense averaged 34.9 points per game during the entire season. But since October 2018, that scoring average ballooned to 51.14 while allowing just 12 points per game. That’s some kind of dominance right there. Having said those, I think the Tigers have enough on both ends of the field to cover this massive 27.5 point spread. However, if this figure continues to balloon (as it has in previous days) to 30 points, that’s another story and I might think of going to the other side of the fence. For now though, Clemson is my pick. Prediction: Clemson -27.5
The over is 3-2 in Clemson’s last five games played while the total has gone under in 4 out of the last six games played by Pittsburgh.
Clemson has been on a tear, averaging over 50 points per game in their last 7 games played and scoring at least 56 points in four of those games. And given that Pittsburgh ranks just 72nd in the nation in scoring defense, the mighty Tigers offense is going to score at will here, 53 may be a number that Clemson can top all by itself. Prediction: Over 53
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