By the time the second CFP semifinal kicks off half the field for the national championship game will be decided. That means the winner of the Clemson Tigers and Ohio State Buckeyes Fiesta Bowl matchup will have one more game left in their season. The Tigers have won 28 straight games and look to become the second repeat CFP champion. They blasted Alabama last year and handled Ohio State in the same Fiesta Bowl, 31-0, three years ago. The game takes place at 8 p.m. ET from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and will be televised live on ESPN. Current college football odds have Clemson as a 2-point favorite.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Clemson Tigers -2
Ohio State Buckeyes +2
Over/Under 63
Clemson vs. Ohio State Odds Analysis
The Tigers have been criticized for playing a weak schedule but they certainly took advantage of their seemingly lesser opponents by running the table for a second straight regular season to extend their overall winning streak to 28 straight. Oddsmakers like Clemson pegging them -1.5 on the opener, and the betting public chipped in with a majority of the early action backing the defending champs moving the number to -2. The over is a popular bet as well pushing the total from 61.5 to 63.
Clemson Odds
If it was so easy to go undefeated don’t you think more teams would do it? When the initial CFP rankings were revealed the Tigers weren’t even among the top four. Maybe they used that as motivation to annihilate opponents, or maybe they are just a great team. I’m leaning toward the latter. There was a close call at North Carolina in the middle of the season, but every team has dealt with those. Clemson responded after that one-point win over the Heels by taking the next eight by a combined score of 415-78 while going 7-1 ATS. They hammered Virginia, 62-17, in the ACC Championship covering the 29-point line.
The Tigers were the only FBS team to hit double figure wins against the line going 10-3 ATS. Even against a perceived weak schedule they dominated with what might be the most well rounded team. With Trevor Lawrence throwing for 3,172 yards and 34 touchdowns and Travis Etienne rushing for 1,500 yards and 17 scores, the Tigers rank third with 547.7 yards and fourth with 46.5 points per game. They also have the No. 1 defense in terms of yards (244.7) and points (10.6) allowed per game. Clemson hasn’t played many close games this season, but they are an experienced team appearing in their fifth straight playoff.
Ohio State Odds
The Buckeyes ran the table convincingly but faced some adversity towards the end of the season moving them down a spot to No. 2 in the CFP. In Week 13 against Penn State they nearly let a 21-point lead evaporate before coming away with a 28-17 win, though they failed to cover as a 20-point favorite. They scored the final 27 points to beat Wisconsin 34-21 in the Big Ten title tilt, again failing to cover this time as 16.5-point chalk. OSU went 1-3 ATS in its last four games to end this season at 9-4 ATS overall.
Ohio State can lay claim to being the best all-around team with its numbers equal to those of Clemson. A lethal duo of Justin Fields and J.K. Dobbins propelled the Buckeyes to the fifth-best offense at 531.5 yards per game while they scored the most points in the FBS with 48.7 per game. Fields threw 40 touchdown passes and was intercepted only once in 308 pass attempts. They rank right behind Clemson in total defense allowing 247.6 yards per game and with Chase Young posting 16.5 sacks the Buckeyes can get after the quarterback.
Key Trends
We have two similar teams as far as talent and stats go, which is why there’s just a 2-point spread on the college football betting line. But the big difference is in the schedule. We’ll keep coming back to it since everyone is making a big deal out of it. Clemson’s schedule was just the 77th-most difficult and they faced only two ranked teams in No. 12 Texas AM and No. 23 Virginia. And neither of those squads ended the season in the top-25. Ohio State had some gimmes early in the season but responded by beating five ranked foes, including three in a row – Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin – at the end of the season. But don’t forget this Clemson team riddled Notre Dame, 30-3, and Alabama, 44-16, in last season’s playoff, so don’t put too much into the weak schedule thing.
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