Clemson at Boston College

Written by Steve Janus

This Saturday the Clemson Tigers will look for their third straight win when they go on the road to take on the Boston College Eagles. The Tigers come in fresh off a 27-13 win against Georgia Tech at home, while the Eagles lost 24-21 at home against Maryland for their fifth consecutive loss. The Tigers have won two straight, including a 25-7 win at home last year. If you are thinking about betting on the game this weekend, the current college football odds have the Tigers favored by 6.5 points over the Eagles on the road.

Clemson (4-3, 2-2 ACC): AFter three tough losses in a row, the Clemson Tigers ahve won back-to-back games and have proved they are still one of the top teams in the ACC. The Tigers rolled over Maryland two weeks ago 31-7 and last week played extremely well against a Georgia Tech team they hadn’t beat in their last four tries.

The Tigers got a big game from running back Andre Ellinton, who ran for a career high 166 yards on 20 caries, including touchdown runs of 55 and 42 yards. Ellington also scored his first career receiving touchdown on a 10 yard pass from Kyle Parker.

Defensively the Tigers did an outstanding job controlling the Yellow Jackets high powered rushing attack, as they held them to just 242 yards on the ground, nearly 100 yards fewer than their season average, and made life miserable for quarterback Joshua Nesbitt, who had just 2 yards on 15 carries.

Boston College (2-5, 0-4 ACC): The Eagles haven’t won a game since beating Kent State 16-13 on Sept. 11, and with the way they are playing, they may struggle to win another game the rest of the season. Boston College is averaging just 19.1 points per game, 104th worst scoring offense in the nation.

Last week the Eagles fell behind 24-7 before finally putting together a couple of nice touchdown drives late in the game to pull it to 24-21, but were unable to score on their final two drivers to tie or take the lead.

Eagles running back Montel Harris provided most of the offense, rushing for 116 yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries, and will need to have another huge game if the Eagles want any shot at beating the Tigers this week. Quarterback Chase Rettig completed 18 of 33 attempts for 189 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions, but the wide outs didn’t make it any easier dropping a number of passes. Defensively the Eagles really played better in the second half, but lost three starters to injury.

Looking at the Odds: I think your money has to be on the Tigers to cover the 6.5 point spread in this one, as the Eagles just don’t have the talent on the defensive side of the ball to keep the Tigers in check. Offensively the Eagles 21 points last week was the most they have scored in their last five games, and that came against a Maryland defense that gave up 31 points to Clemson the previous week. My final score prediction is Clemson 28, Boston College 17.

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