You may want to watch anything but Clemson football this weekend due to the inept offense that we have trotted out thus far this season or due to Dabo’s inflammatory comments early this week (shameless self-promotion: you can read my response to his press conference here
). Either way you may want to watch some other games. Below you will find some that may catch your attention because of their relation to Clemson’s season.North Carolina v. UCF: North Carolina has won two in a row since losing its
opener to TCU. UCF struggled against Jacksonville State, but easily beat NC A&T. Given the struggles that UNC had with TCU it is likely this will also be a struggle. It is impossible to gauge how good or bad UCF is, but we will likely know how bad UNC is if they are unable to beat UCF on Saturday. It may be an easy win for Clemson when they meet up later next week if they can’t beat UCF (although perhaps we should worry about Syracuse first).
NC State v. Duke: Clemson has struggled coming off open dates and guess who Clemson plays on November 1 after their second open date of the year. The Blue Devils. This will be a great game to help gauge how tough that matchup will be. Duke just lost a close battle with Tulane, who may be a playoff team, after losing to Illinois another possible playoff team. Those losses don’t hurt their standing too much. NC State is undefeated, but they have played in tightly contested games with their opponents. They have played East Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest. None of which appear to be especially good programs this year. This should be a good game to watch between two similarly talented teams.
Miami v. Florida: I know what you’re thinking Florida is overrated. Not sure we as a fanbase have much standing to levy this accusation against another team, but point taken. I would counter that by saying that Florida only lost by 10 points at LSU despite its quarterback, DJ Lagway throwing five interceptions in the game. While Lagway has been underwhelming this year, he showed flashes of being a great player last season. If he can have a great game or at least minimize the bad plays, then Florida’s defense may make this a competitive game. It will be interesting to see how Miami’s offense fairs in this game. I am trying to maintain positivity here and believe that Clemson will make it to the ACC Championship (which is a difficult task). Miami is sure to be in the mix for that and may be the team we play for the conference championship. Given Florida has an ineffective offense and a good defense, it should show road map to survive, or at the fair least compete with, Miami
South Carolina v. Missouri: South Carolina came into the season with a lot of expectations and thus far they have not lived up to them. They were blown out last week, at least in part due to losing Star QB LaNorris Sellers to a concussion during the game. He is now questionable for the Mayor’s cup (named due to the USC and Mizzou both playing in Columbia). Even if he was not questionable, this would likely be a tall task for the Cocks because their offense has not looked good (Clemson fans should understand this struggle very well). This game will help determine whether USC can live up to the attention they garnered this off season. I expect this to be competitive game, but I thought the same thing when USC played Vandy last week.
