Auburn at Clemson – College Football Predictions
The Game
BOOM. It’s the TIGER BOWL, baby.
It’s another match-up of TWO of the MEGALOCKS college football top-5 as Auburn visits Clemson on Saturday night. We are really high on Auburn this season and they started off in style with a 41-7 victory over Georgia Southern. As far as Clemson is concerned, they left no doubt in people’s minds last week that they are LOADED once again, as they dealt out a 56-3 beating to Kent St. This is the first of three really tough games for Clemson in the next four weeks (at Louisville, at Virginia Tech). Let’s go !
The Details
CLEMSON -5.5 AUBURN (55.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Clemson -6
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Clemson 30.5 Auburn 25
Massey Ratings Projected Score: Clemson 34 Auburn 17
The Match-Up
Clemson offense vs Auburn defense
The Tigers (the Clemson version) are becoming a really amazing reloading machine. QB Kelly Bryant looked pretty good last week (YES – Kent St) throwing for 236 yards and rushing for 77 yards and a score. The RB unit will miss Wayne Gallman but appear to be really deep and will be able to keep fresh legs in the game. MEGALOCKS CLEMSON INSIDERS note that FIFTEEN (!) different players caught a pass last week. Nobody hauled in more than three. They rushed for 353 yards and passed for 312 in week one. It seems to us that Auburn’s excellent defense is going to have trouble. Who knows what’s coming, yo ?
Auburn played rock solid defense in 2016 (17 ppg allowed) and got off to a nice start in week one holding Georgia Southern to just 78 (!) yards total offense. There is no doubt they will miss the presence of Carl Lawson but the defense is still full of really good players. We expect them to hold their own for most of the game but it is unfair to think they will keep Clemson to under 27 points. They could. But we need to temper expectations.
Auburn offense vs Clemson defense
Uh oh. Auburn has a quarterback.
It remains to be seen how Jarrett Stidham does over a full season BUT the fact remains they now have a legitimate passing threat at QB to go with the DEVASTATING rushing attack. RB Kamryn Pettway is back this week but they will likely be without RB K Johnson who had 130 yards rushing vs Ga Southern. The good news is that Kam Martin ALSO ran for a BUCK THIRTY last week. The passing game gets WR Kyle Davis back in the fold this week after missing the first game with a suspension. Clemson is really tough to run against but Auburn is an animal with the rushing attack. They will get their yards. It seems to us the key will be hitting a few big plays in the passing game when they choose to MATRICULATE down the field. Kent St didn’t even try to throw the ball so it is hard to know how solid Clemson will be in the secondary (either really good – or stupid good). Overall we feel like it will be hard for Clemson to keep Auburn out of the 20s.
MEGA MORSELS
These two teams met last season and Clemson eeeeeeked out a 19-13 win…..Wasn’t that the game where Auburn used like a 7 man QB rotation ?…..Clemson allowed 5 first downs last week….Auburn allowed 78 yards…..TREND GUY will note that the under trend in Auburn games has been pretty good as of late.
Summary
Yes, guy. This should be fun. No result would shock us other than a blowout win for either team. These teams should be THROWING IT DOWN for 60 minutes (or more). Enjoy.
Conclusion
No official play. The game looks perfectly lined. We were hoping for a total in the low 50s for an over play but 55.5 is just too much for our tastes. Not brave enough to go under given the talent on display for both offenses.