The Clemson Tigers are not just NCAA football betting favorites to win their last game before going on bye, but they want to send a message. “You definitely want to go into your bye week sending a message and just finishing the game, playing a good, strong, complete game, because after this game no one’s going to see us for two weeks,” defensive end Christian Wilkins said. Too bad he never actually said what the message is, but it’s probably something along the lines of, “if the schedule gives you a Syracuse Orange, make orangeade.”
Third straight season we've started 6-0… #ALLIN ?? pic.twitter.com/F6qAV1JpT5
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) October 7, 2017
- Date: October 13th.
- Time: 7:05 PM
- Venue: Carrier Dome, Syracuse, NY
- Online Sportsbook NCAA Football Betting Odds:
Clemson -22½ (-110) 56½ (-110) -2000
Syracuse +22½ (-110) 56½ (-110) +1250
A modern-day Siege of Syracuse
Clemson starting QB Kelly Bryant will be, barring any unforeseen event, the General Marcus Claudius Marcellus that will lay siege to this new Syracuse. Bryant sustained an ankle injury in the Tigers’ 28-14 win over Wake Forest on Saturday, but Swinney nevertheless expects him to start against the Orange. Bryant practiced on Monday, didn’t miss any reps, and is responding well to treatment. “It’s been good. Been good,” Swinney said Tuesday. “Practiced all day yesterday and moved around well so I was very encouraged.” There are, all things considered, three potential scenarios; Bryant, no worse for wear, starts and passes and runs for a few hundred yards; he starts but, just to be on the safe side, allows the running backs to carry the brunt of the ground attack; or, either true freshman Hunter Johnson or redshirt freshman Zerrick Cooper, both of whom are fairly competent, starts. A straight-up Clemson win is, in all of those instances, all but guaranteed (they have won their last 12 straight road games), though the same may not be said of the spread; the Tigers are 4-1 ATS in their last five games after an ATS loss and 6-2 ATS in their last eight overall, but just 2-5 against the NCAA football betting spread in their last seven ACC games and 2-6 ATS in their last eight on fieldturf.
Stood up and without a lever
Bryant may be the Marcellus of Clemson’s Roman Republic, but the Syracuse lacks the Archimedes who can defend it like the Greek mathematician did the Orange’s Hellenistic namesake. Then again, if Archimedes had, among his many other inventions, invented the spread, perhaps history could have gone differently. Syracuse is 3-0-1 ATS in the last four games, 3-0 ATS in the last three games as an underdog, and 4-0 ATS when playing a team with a winning record, though the Orange also is 1-4-1 ATS in the last six home games and 1-4-1 ATS in their last six on fieldturf. Syracuse has not broken the 30-point mark this season – and Clemson allows just 11.3 points per game – and the total has gone over in only one of their games this season. The NCAA football betting total has, meanwhile, gone under in four of the Tigers’ six games, including the last three straight (perhaps four straight this Friday?).