North Carolina at Clemson (Saturday – 12pm ET)
North Carolina faced TCU in the international game in Week 0, but has had plenty of down time since. The Tar Heels had a bye in Week 1 and easily handled East Tennessee State last week at home, 35-3. After giving up 48 points to TCU in Week 1 last season, the most ever by a Bill Belichick defense at any level, this version of UNC has been more what we expected to see from the legendary head coach.
The Tar Heels have surrendered 13 total points on the season, and held TCU to 10 points in the rematch in Ireland. Expect Belichick’s defense to continue looking strong in its first true road game of the season. Clemson’s offense was inept against LSU in the season opener. While the scoreboard read 10 points for the Tigers by the end of the game, LSU practically shut them out. Clemson got an early field goal off a turnover, and then a garbage time touchdown when LSU had hung over 50 points on the board.
Clemson bounced back with a win last week at home over Georgia Southern, but it wasn’t pretty. The Tigers scored just 22 points as near three-touchdown favorites, finishing with a final of 22-7. Despite how many points LSU scored on Clemson, much of that was piled on due to the offense not being able to move the ball.
UNC is not LSU, and won’t be able to run the score up like that. The Tar Heels managed just 13 points of offense in the matchup against the Horned Frogs, and will slum this one up with Clemson. With two inefficient offenses and a couple of solid defenses, look for a low scoring game in Death Valley. Feels like a 17-13 type of game.
Clemson has been working in two quarterbacks on the young season, neither looking very strong. But the starter and the veteran, Christopher Vizzina has now been ruled out due to injury. That means it all falls on the shoulders of the true freshman QB, Tait Reynolds. The freshman has upside, but could fall more into trying to run the ball, which I like for the under. It’s also a tough task to ask him to make his first start as this level against a Belichick defense that looks strong through two weeks.
Bettors at DK agree, with just 33% of the bets on the under, making up a whopping 91% of the handle, as of Friday evening.
CFB Pick: UNDER 44.5 (-110)
CFB Pick: 1H UNDER 21.5 (-115) – 0.5-units
CFB Pick: Clemson TT UNDER 23.5 (-110) – 0.5-units
