Clemson +3.5 3.3% play
Clearly a value play here. The last 3 meetings the spread has been 21.5, 27, and 24, and pre-season this spread was -17.5, and we have seen a 3 TD move. Clemson also 0-6 ATS this season while Pitt is 5-1 ATS. Clemson has faced by far the tougher schedule at this point their opponent ypp differential is +0.88 compared to Pitt’s opponents who are -0.42, and they faced Tennessee at the right time, which was the beginning of the season. For me this game is all about Kenny Pickett at QB for Pitt. That is their one true advantage in this game, and the knock on Pickett is he does not perform well against good defenses. Clemson constitutes as a great defense, and they’re getting their best coverage corner Andrew Booth back this week.
Let’s dig deep into Pickett’s struggles at QB against top defenses, these are defenses that on average are top 50 blended in variety of categories like ypp, epa pass, epa run, ypc run, qbr. He’s faced 11 opponents over the last 4 seasons, and he’s thrown just 7 passing TD’s in those games and 9 interceptions. He’s only recorded 1 game where he averaged more than 6 yards per pass attempt, which to put that in perspective would be 113th in the country. In his two games against Clemson he was 26-55, 217 yards 2 TD’s and 5 INT’s. Pickett this season has faced a blended average defense of 71.92, so his numbers are great, but we saw some struggles from years past show up last week vs. Virginia Tech he was only 22-37 203 yards 5.5 yards per pass attempt 2 td/ 0int. He was lucky to have the running game to help him out in their 28-7 win, Va Tech is 98th in run defense. Clemson is top 20 in all of these categories.
Clemson’s offense has been terrible and we really can’t deny that, but..DJ had his best game last week, and I feel like Clemson has found something in the running game with Kobe Pace who over the last two games has rushed 32 times for 201 yards and 2 TD’s. Pitt’s defense showed some weakness in their pass defense at times this year and rank 61st in EPA pass defense. These are two of the slowest offenses snaps per second in the country, and I just don’t see how Pitt can win this game by more than 3 points.
