Auburn At Clemson Pointspread Pick and Betting Preview
9/17/11
Clemson hosts the defending National Champs this week, the undefeated Auburn Tigers in a big revenge affair. Last year these two also hooked up in week 3, in a Game that Clemson all but had in the bag. Auburn won the Game in OT and went on to go undefeated the rest of the way to win the BCS Title while Clemson suffered through a 6-7 season with plenty of close losses against quality opponents. Clemson is currently a -3.5 point favorite at most sportsbooks.
Everyone expected Auburn to be down a couple of notches this year and they may very well be, but after going 14-0 last year, they still refuse to lose, winning their first two Games, over Utah State and last week over Miss State. They struggled against Utah State, having to mount a comeback to win in the final seconds.
Meanwhile, Clemson has had some trouble of their own. They hammered Troy in their first Game but struggled against Wofford and their triple option attack last week. The Game was tied at the half and was a 1 point Game in the 4th quarter. Clemson won 35-27 but it wasn’t easy.
We’ll give Clemson a pass for last week. Not sure how much preparation went into the Wofford Game but let’s face it, it’s tough to prepare for the option and it’s equally as tough to get a buNCh of kids excited to play Wofford when they have the National Champs on deck followed by Games with Florida State and Virginia Tech.
As we write this the line is dropping as Auburn money comes in. The number is 3.5 and at some spots, -3 with heavy juice on the favorite Clemson. We give the nod to Clemson here. They could have beaten the Cam Newton version of Auburn a year ago but came up short, and that one was on the road. They are in better shape than Auburn as far as returning talent goes and have likely been pointing to this Game all off season.
At anything less than a field goal, we’ll take Clemson. Clemson -3