Clemson Opens As An 8.5 Point Favorite

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Early football lines are out for this weekend. Clemson opens as an 8.5 point favorite.

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General NCS Football

50 Responses to Clemson Opens As An 8.5 Point Favorite

  1. partialqualifier 09/17/2007 at 11:48 AM #

    ^ First of all…I wouldnt brag about out-rushing Wofford…but to be clear I dint say Wofford outrushed us…I said we were outgained…as in total yards from scrimmage.

    Wofford had 353 yards
    NC State had 330 yards

  2. highonlowe 09/17/2007 at 12:01 PM #

    I guess I just don’t understand your point that “we’re not that much better than Wofford b/c they outgained us”. We outgained both UCF and BC. When teams get a big lead many OC’s decide to sit on the ball, which is what we did.

  3. partialqualifier 09/17/2007 at 12:26 PM #

    I was just making an observation about the game. That is all. IMHO…after sitting thru every play of the game on Saturday…we are not that much better than Wofford. We threw the ball 32 times…which is hardly conservative…and we didnt average 4 yards per attempt..which is horrible. We had over 100 yards in penalties and only had 19 first downs. Combine that with the fact that we could not sustain any kind of drive after the opening drive..I would say at the very least that we did not play much better than they did.

    Of course..as always…everyone is entitled to disagree. Maybe you saw something I didnt.

  4. BoKnowsNCS71 09/17/2007 at 1:10 PM #

    Stats are stats. I’ve seen us lose with far greater stats then our opponents. Bottom line was it was a 38-10 win. Defense did what it could against a system they had never seen before and had less than a week to learn to defend.

    The DL did what it had to do = force turnovers and bend but not break. And don’t forget our guys are still adjusting to a new defensive scheme. Always amazes me when we are never happy with a W.

  5. redfred2 09/17/2007 at 1:14 PM #

    Partial, you’re bringing up way too many legitimate facts and stats. We’re coming off a win, nobody wants to hear that stuff around here right now. 😉

  6. lush 09/17/2007 at 1:16 PM #

    the only purpose for the line is to get people to bet on the game. it is low now for the clemson fans to take it and then as more money gets placed it raises so then the state fans want to get in on it. it has nothing to do with who they think will win.

    if they only ran for 70 yards v. furman, why cant we hold them to that? the defense played pretty damn good in the second half of ucf and the first half of bc. if they can keep it together on d and win the turnover battle, we have a good shot at winning.

    and i think it was pretty clear on saturday that unc has the worst run d in the conference, not us.

    partialqualifier, did our starters play the whole game? did we need to score anymore points? do you think that they were using this game as a practice in the second half? or were they maximizing their efforts against a FCS school, and were just terrible?

  7. Mike 09/17/2007 at 1:18 PM #

    GTech has been running and moving the ball well – of course, one of those was ND, which is so bad even Michigan shut them out. BC stuffed them, made BC look really good, and even gives us some hope that we are not as bad as we may seem. BC has a tough D and IMO one of the best in the country, if not the conference at a minimum.

    Clemson was flat against Furman, which is a neighbor game and no excuse to look past them. They threw the ball maybe as a decoy to this week. They will not be flat against us. That puddle is the drool from Spiller and Davis looking at our injured D.

    I agree with partial, take away our gifts (I know gifts are part of the game) and it is a 17-17 game. We dont get those against a team equal or better than we are.

    GO PACK but I think it will be a long day in C-F. I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

  8. partialqualifier 09/17/2007 at 1:20 PM #

    LOL Redfred….point taken.

    Just for the record….I am ecstatic with a win of any kind. I hope we keep improving so that we can win some ball games this year. This was a thread afterall about the Clemson game…and IMO the ridiculously low spread for the game. My original point (which is always lost in these things) is that Tommy Bowden should be forced to take a cab home if his talented team loses to us this year. In making that point I was using info from the Wofford game to illustrate how we are not that much better than Wofford. That said…I hope we win. I love TOB…and I fully support NCSU no matter what.

  9. wufpaxno1 09/17/2007 at 1:30 PM #

    NCSU 1-2
    UNC 1-2
    WFU 1-2
    Duke 1-2
    ECU 1-2

    Wow, we are still in the hunt for the elusive State title that CTC and Bunting used to refer to. That is if you don’t count FCS teams like ASU.
    And we are 1-0 against teams from S. Carolina, maybe that is what influenced the odds makers in Vegas.

  10. JimValvano 09/17/2007 at 1:55 PM #

    what about App. St.???

    I think they are the team to beat in NC

  11. beowolf 09/17/2007 at 2:13 PM #

    I’d love for App State to play Notre Dame, after the clowning the Irish just got from Michigan.

  12. noah 09/17/2007 at 3:05 PM #

    The reason we outgained BC is because we had 85 turnovers. When the other team scores by having their defense run interceptions and fumbles back for touchdowns, the offense doesn’t have to take the field much.

  13. wufpaxno1 09/17/2007 at 3:07 PM #

    ASU = Appalachian State University, they are in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision)

  14. packbackr04 09/17/2007 at 3:48 PM #

    wufpax: ^ that may be so, but ASU has beaten more div 1a teams than both carolina and NCSU have this year

  15. BoKnowsNCS71 09/17/2007 at 3:49 PM #

    The oddsmakers love logic like I often see applied by betters and on blogs. We all tend to look at one game and how it came out and project that as a reliable predictor of a future game(s). Like last year beating FSU and BC but losing the others. Emotion can carry a game — and sometimes most of a season but the talent has to be there for the long haul.

    I thought Oklahoma State was going to be tough again this year (as did Phil Steel expecting them to win 7 or more). Then as the 35+ point favorite Friday night they got trounced and embarassed by Troy State who ran all over them.

    Don’t get me wrong — I think you can see trends in games — I thought Louisville could lose to KY after watching their (Louisville’s) poor defense against Middle Tennessee. As for Utah vs UCLA — that blind sided me like a train wreck because I bought in that UCLA was better than they played last Saturday. They were not. And had I been betting rather than fishing — I would have lost.

  16. redfred2 09/17/2007 at 5:55 PM #

    Bo, don’t so feel bad, the Gameday duo of Corso and Herbstreit were both adamant about “buying” seats on the UCLA bandwagon earlier Saturday.

  17. wufpaxno1 09/17/2007 at 9:55 PM #

    ^Packbackr04, I am in full agreement and that’s why I left App. State off of the list. It’s a sad testament to the five BCS (D-1) schools in this state that the best team in NC is an FCS school, and that’s not taking anything from App. State, they have earned my respect!

    State could go a long way toward getting back some lost recognition with an upset this weekend. I don’t think that that we are as far away from a decent season as some might think. We lost to a solid Boston College team that may be the best in the ACC and we are one blown game away from a 2-1 record going into the Clemson game. But I guess the same could be said of 8 of 9 losses from last year and so until the Pack can prove that they have righted ship, there is room for skepticism.

  18. bTHEredterror 09/18/2007 at 4:11 AM #

    I would have thought UCLA was about as good as their ranking until Saturday as well. Most college teams have a wtfer like that every couple of years. Seems Dorrell can’t get them over the hump.

    We the privileged, get several wtfers every year of course. But so does Clemson, I present Duke beating them in ’04, and the stomping we handed to them in Death Valley.

    They are certainly better on paper, but after watching FSU on offense a couple more times, I’m not yet sold on their D. Colorado made the Noles look kind of plain, and the Buffs gave up 38 against CSU. The Clemson D has also yielded some points in some mop up work the last couple of weeks.

    It’s an early game, and we’re at home so so I think we hang around a while if our guys can come out strong. But, I think Clemson will cover that 8.5, with a late TD run to stretch to a 27-17 win. I bet we get 3 turnovers in this game, we just might not get enough from them to win.

  19. noah 09/18/2007 at 11:21 AM #

    Someone mentioned the 1987 State/Clemson game…that was probably one of the five biggest upset in NCSU football history.

    Clemson won the ACC title the year before (beating us by a 1/2 game) and won the Gator Bowl. They were undefeated in 1987, 6-0, and were ranked eighth, I believe. They were on their way to another ACC title, a 10-2 season (they’d lose to South Carolina) and a Citrus Bowl win over Penn State.

    We came out and went up 30-0 at halftime. I’m reasonably certain that we scored on every possession in the first half. We were 2-4 at the time, having only beaten the pathetic Maryland and Georgia Tech, and having gotten killed by Wake, ECU, Pitt and having lost a disappointing game to UNC the week before. We’d get destroyed by USuC and ETSU the next two weeks.

    For some very strange reason, we scored at the end of the first half and Sheridan went for the two-point conversion. We failed and the Johnny Evans (who was doing sideline work then) asked Sheridan about it at the half. He said that 32 points meant that it would take five touchdowns to beat us and since Clemson was an option team and not much of a passing threat, he didn’t think they would have time to do that in a half.

    He was right. Clemson scored on four straight possessions to begin the second half. We were just trying to run the clock, but Danny Ford had apparently blown a load of red pepper up his team’s collective butts and they were shutting us down rather easily. I’m sure that we did, but I can’t remember us getting a first down in the second half. Seems like every possession was three-and-out-and-punt.

    Finally, at the end of the game, Clemson had the ball and was marching, but they were out of TOs and the clock was winding down. They managed to get the ball to around our 40 yard line.

    Clemson had lost to Georgia a few years earlier on Kevin Butler’s 60 yard field goal as the clock ran out and I had visions of a similar event taking place. I think Chris Gardocki was their kicker. Unlike Tommy Bowden, Danny Ford always had good special teams players. Dale Hatcher, Donald Igwebuike (Ray Perkins called him “Donald Kicker”), Gardocki, Nelson Welch (a FOUR-time all-conference kicker)…

    Apparently, 57-yards was too far for whoever their kicker was….and when they were faced with a fourth down and had to go for it, they had to put the ball in the air. If anyone remembers the 1988 Clemson-State classic, you know that Rodney Williams was not the world’s most accurate quarterback. (in 1988, he missed a wide open Clemson receiver streaking down the sidelines by 20 yards and later beaned a ref in the head with one of his passes.) On fourth down, we managed to get a little pressure on Williams and his pass was knocked down. There were only about 30 seconds left, so we ran the clock out and escaped with a 30-28 upset.

  20. quad87 09/18/2007 at 1:10 PM #

    I was thinking the game was fall of ’86. My senior year and I was working at Angotti’s take make a little money for spring break. Somehow I managed to talk this tremendously cute waitress (Lee) into going to the game w/ me. While tailgating one of my friend’s friend kept hitting on Lee, it starts raining during the first half, and she decides to sit in the car the entire second half (and we never went out again). However, the alumni on the other side of me had snuck a bottle of Jack into the game, he becomes my best friend, we somehow hold on to win (see Noah above), and it turned out to be one of the best State games I’ve ever seen in C-F.

    Wonder whatever happened to that girl…

  21. bTHEredterror 09/18/2007 at 1:16 PM #

    Did you guys notice McCuller on the two deep? I’d like to see Green moved to Heppe’s spot and Mculler to start.

  22. noah 09/18/2007 at 2:30 PM #

    quad – the game in 1986 was in the rain and at C-F. We didn’t hold on to win. We won 27-3.

    The game I described was at Clemson and was in 1987.

    Memories run together…

  23. redfred2 09/18/2007 at 6:47 PM #

    noah is right, that was the ’86 game. I remember getting a little wet and then going for a jacket at halftime. That’s when I remember seeing this really good looking waitress type sitting all alone in the car. The story goes on…, but no one really wants to hear the details.

  24. john of sparta 09/18/2007 at 8:49 PM #

    lush…correct.
    not enough action on the current line.
    State’s not betting, ’cause it’s too low.
    ClemPson’s not ’cause they want to “double up.”
    when it goes to 10 1/2, money will flow.

  25. quad87 09/19/2007 at 9:31 AM #

    Thanks for the clarification. My memory was mainly one of kicking their butts and being in complete delirium/confusion after three years of Tom Reed.

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