2. Wake Forest at North Carolina
LINE: North Carolina -13.5
ATS PICK: Wake Forest
– Bet on this, BetMGM latest line
Notre Dame fans, watch this game between two teams your Irish will have to face on the road.
North Carolina games are always scary – which team will show up?
Will it be the one that can rip apart a team like NC State, keep rolling against a Virginia Tech, and dominate Duke, or is it the one that can’t put together a full 60 minutes in losses to Florida State and Virginia?
The one big concern here is the home atmosphere. The Tar Heels are 3-0 in Chapel Hill, winning all three by 11 or more.
But you’ll take anything under 14.
Wake Forest is very, very, very, very, very, very quietly having a decent year.
It doesn’t have the big name. It doesn’t have any splashy stars. It doesn’t get a whole lot of national play, but it was good enough to cover relatively easily in the 37-13 loss to Clemson to open the season, lost a good 45-42 fight at NC State, and then reeled off four straight wins.
The offense has the balance and downfield passing attack to keep up if this gets into a shootout, and the defense has been a relative rock over the last four months – it does a lot of bending, but it only allowed more than 16 points once in the last three games, a 40-23 win over Virginia.
What you like here are those 13.5 points.
The North Carolina defense is hit-or-miss, and while the team should win, again, Wake Forest is just good enough to keep this from being a total wipeout.