Clemson vs. Louisville: Tigers’ Tough Test at Home

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00:00We start in Clemson, South Carolina, with a matchup between

00:06the Tigers and the Cardinals of Louisville. Clemson has won six

00:10straight games since dropping its season opener in

00:13disastrous fashion against Georgia. But in this six-game

00:17win streak, Clemson has looked like a top 10, top 15 team in

00:22the country. It's a double-digit spread, Joe, in favor of the

00:25Tigers as they host Louisville today. In this six-game win

00:28streak, Clemson is covered in four of those six. The average

00:32margin of victory, north of 27 points per game. But to Kevin's

00:37point last week, the Tigers' strength of schedule, which

00:40includes the opener against the Bulldogs, is 75th in the

00:44country to this point of the season. So it should be an

00:48elevated test against Louisville. How does Clemson

00:50handle it? Well, they have dominated Louisville in recent

00:53years. They've won all eight meetings, eight straight heading

00:55into this matchup in the series dating back to 2014. And you

01:00talk about the dominance at home, 4-0 this year. They've won

01:03those four games by an average margin of victory of 28.4

01:07points per game. The only game that they didn't cover was a

01:10couple of weeks ago, where they won by 17, 48-31 over Virginia

01:14as basically a 20.5-point favorite. But I do believe in

01:18Louisville traveling in terms of this situation. Jeff Brahm is

01:22an underdog. Last game they played, they trailed by

01:24double digits in Chestnut Hill, pull out the 31-27 victory.

01:28Tyler Shuck playing very well. They're averaging well over 250

01:32passing yards per game. They can run it with Isaac Brown. And

01:35they have the big three. Isaac Brown, Jacory Brooks, that has

01:38well over 700 receiving yards on the year. They could stretch

01:42Clemson over the top. I'll say this from the offensive

01:44perspective. This is the most lethal offense Clemson's placed

01:48in terms of the schedule. I'm taking the 10.5 points. I don't

01:51know if Louisville wins, but I like Jeff Brahm in this spot.

01:55And that's what I was waiting for. I said, that's what I was

01:58waiting for. Because you know, this Clemson stuff, it's a

02:01little fraudulent.

02:02We're week to week. That's what makes college football so great.

02:05You, we gauged it when we had that discussion. Clemson was

02:09hitting on all cylinders. Put a 10.5 spot in front of me with

02:12Louisville. I'm taking the points.

02:14Clemson still is hitting on all cylinders since that

02:16conversation, as they had an open weekend last Saturday. But

02:20Kev, now to you.

02:21Okay, just to be clear, just to be clear. And again, I love you

02:26to death. Okay. When we had the conversation, they were hit on

02:29also. Since that conversation, they played a game. They scored

02:3348 and it beat UVA by 17. So what?

02:36So I picked for you, UVA in that game. I said that we

02:39also you've been fading this Clemson team because you know,

02:41it's not that real.

02:42It is a deserving of the ranking. Virginia did cover the

02:45two non covers for Clemson in this six game win streak. It's

02:48come by a total of four points. Louisville been a dog twice this

02:52year. Oh, and two against the spread, but against Notre Dame

02:55and Miami. Those were both under a touchdown. Louisville lost

02:59each of those games by only a touchdown.

03:01Yeah, look, I think when you navigate a touch of spread meth

03:06here, I don't find the number to be disgraceful. Listen, Clemson,

03:10Notre Dame, we can do the comparison. But there's been a

03:13lot that's played out since when Louisville went to Notre Dame. I

03:16also think that the books were still trying to figure out the

03:19Irish a little bit. And again, they are presenting like an

03:22absolute wagon right now. And quite frankly, but when I went

03:28into this game, it was not going to just be eyes closed. Let's

03:31get Louisville and move on. I wondered if the bye week was

03:35going to tell me anything because that's what Clemson has.

03:37Again, we were talking about a little during the break for the

03:39second time this year. They're off by they did get the first

03:42win and cover against North NC State. NC State is also a

03:46atrocious one of the biggest underachievers of this college

03:49football season. Sure. Heading into the year, Owen three

03:53against the number in their last three games last in the last

03:56three seasons off by with two outright losses, both as a

04:01favorite, they've been favored on all the games. Now they were

04:04all on the road at Q's at Notre Dame. I don't remember the third

04:08one. But it was again, it was an it was another outline outright

04:11loss for Clemson. I just view it as a situation where Louisville

04:15can stay inside this number buzz because some almost baseball

04:19ask, I don't know if Clemson needed a break, because that

04:23offense was rolling. So Chris, so you turn a Clemson game on Oh,

04:27look at that. They have 24 points midway through the second

04:29quarter. I think that Louisville here has also shown the ability

04:33to hang offensively. Just look at the Miami game, for example.

04:36Yeah, absolutely. So Louisville has gone over in both of its

04:39games as an underdog this year, a very stout Louisville defense

04:43a year ago in year number one, under Jeff Brom, not nearly as

04:47good this year, they have gone over in six of eight games, they

04:51allowed at least 27 points in three of their last four. So it

04:56is important to pay attention to that Clemson's defense, which

04:59had been carrying the water for a struggling offense the last

05:02few seasons, also not nearly as elite giving up nearly 350 yards

05:07of offense per game seventh in the ACC. They were the best

05:12total defense each of the past three seasons, even last year

05:16when they won only four ACC games. And Tyler shock is an

05:20intriguing quarterback. He's had a long road through college

05:23football, Oregon to Texas Tech now in his seventh year at

05:27Louisville, at least 264 yards over his number today, in six of

05:32the seven games the cards have played against FBS competition.

05:35Dev in the last four ACC games, three times Chuck is thrown for

05:39at least 329 yards against SMU, Miami and Boston College. If

05:45Louisville is going to keep this game to within double digits,

05:48Tyler shuck going to be a big reason why those right over the

05:50one and a half passing touchdowns as well. Most likely

05:53Clemson is giving up an outrageous amount of passing

05:55touchdowns maybe because teams are trailing UVA had multiple

05:59quarterbacks throw passing touched two plus passing

06:01touchdowns against them. So did Wake Forest, Florida State

06:05brought to two scores on this team. It's an up and coming. Oh

06:10my goodness. In fact, we have seen almost every single team

06:15throw multiple passing touchdowns against them. I think

06:17it's every single power opponent has thrown multiple passing

06:21touch. The only quarterback who didn't was actually Joey Aguiar.

06:24But again, like, here's, again, we had a debate about this

06:28loosely last week that we're going to get into you don't know

06:30it yet more this week about what a team we thought was going to be

06:34going in and then free evaluating when Clemson beat

06:37App State the way that they did. It was like, Whoa, awesome.

06:40I think it's terrible. Like, those are the adjustments that

06:44we have to make there. So again, that is to me a reason why I'm

06:48willing to take Louisville in this spot because this is very

06:52clearly the toughest test that they've had since they started

06:55to play good football.

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