Clemson at Wake Forest

Written by Steve Janus

This Saturday the Clemson Tigers will look to become bowl eligible when they go on the road to take on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The Tigers nearly got their sixth win of the season last week, but lost 16-13 at Florida State. The Demon Deacons were no match for North Carolina State, losing 38-3 for their eighth straight loss. Even though the visitor is just 1-7 in the last eight meetings between these two teams, the current college football odds have the Tigers favored by 13-points over the Demon Deacons.

Clemson (5-5, 3-4 ACC): The Tigers haven’t allowed more than 16 points in each of their last five games, and are giving up just over 17 points a game on the season. The problem of late has been the offenses inability to put points on the board. The Tigers haven’t score more than 13 points in each of their last three games. A big reason for that is they have been without their star running back Andre Ellington for most of that stretch, and he isn’t expected to be back this week.

Jamie Harper is filling in for Ellington, and after struggling to get things going against Boston College and North Carolina State, Harper went off for 143 yards and a touchdown last week against Florida State. The Demon Deacons come in allowing 196 yards a game on the ground, so Harper should be able to put together an even better performance this week.

Senior quarterback Kyle Parker threw for a season-high 239 yards against the Seminoles last week, but finished with no touchdowns and two interceptions. After throwing just four interceptions in the Tigers first seven games, Parker has thrown five in the last three. The Demon Deacons are also pretty bad against the pass, allowing 235 yards a game, so look for Parker to put together a much better showing this week.

Wake Forest (2-8, 1-6 ACC): Its hard to win games when you average just 23 points a game while giving up nearly 39, and that has been the case for the Demon Deacons since starting the season 2-0. The Demon Deacons managed just 188 yards of total offense with just 12 first downs last week.

The Demon Deacons just don’t have any offensive players that can really change the game and go for a big play, and its hard to figure out where they are going to get offense from, especially this week against a Clemson defense that is playing as well as anyone in the ACC on that side of the ball.

Defensively the Demon Deacons can’t stop anybody, and they can’t make the big play to get the offense off the field. Wake Forest has forced just three turnovers in the last four games, while the offense has coughed it up eight times during that same stretch. With nothing to play for, its hard to imagine the Demon Deacons will put up much of a fight at all this week.

Looking at the Odds: This is one my favorite plays of the weekend! Getting Clemson at just -13 is a steal, as they should win this game by at least 20 points. The Tigers defense doesn’t figure to give up much more than a touchdown in this game, and as long as the Tigers don’t get sloppy and turn it over, they should score at least three touchdowns, if not more. My final score prediction is Clemson 31, Wake Forest 10.

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