Previewing the NCAA Championship Game with the Clemson Tigers and LSU Tigers, sports betting odds and lines, with matchup analysis, picks and tips.
The Clemson Tigers are in the CFP brackets for a fifth straight year. On Monday night at the Superdome, HC Dabo Swinney and company will take on LSU in the National Championship Game, marking Clemson’s fourth final in five years. A win on Monday would be back-to-back titles and a third championship trophy in four years. If you are thinking about betting on the Clemson Tigers to do just that, here are a few reasons backing your decision.
1. Clemson’s Defense
Some pundits have decried the old “defense wins championships” as being outdated in modern, spread, RPO college football. That statement isn’t truly outdated, but an updated version would be “defense, along with offense, wins championships.” And that seems like common sense, if not exactly some Rosetta Stone of pigskin knowledge.
Good defenses… in fact, great defenses have been quite effective over the first five years of championship bracket ball. By one reliable analytic measure, three of five titles have been won be teams rated either first or second in defense. Only in 2014, when Ohio State beat Oregon, was the winning defense not a top-10 unit. And that year sided with defense being more important: OSU’s 14th-ranked defense beat Oregon’s top-ranked offense. The Ducks’ defense? No. 38.
The teams winning titles have been better on defense than they are on offense (like Clemson this year). The 2015 Alabama Crimson Tide ranked No. 1 on defense … and No. 24 on offense. Scores of games may be higher, but there can still be plenty of tremendous and crucial defensive plays turned in 38-35 game. On defense, the Clemson Tigers are former elite recruits who have received elite college coaching. They are especially proficient in situational defense, on third downs and in the red zone. They are better at such than any team LSU has faced this season.
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2. Clemson’s Game Control
Other than the win over Ohio State, Clemson can’t claim statistical game comps to LSU’s victories over Florida, Auburn, Alabama and Georgia. But then, none of those teams hold a candle to the 2019 Buckeyes, which is a team that may have won the lion’s share of the brackets if they could be played 100 times on a loop. Clemson’s “poor-man’s comps” – routs of North Carolina, Florida State, Wake Forest and Virginia (all top 60s) – were just that commanding in the area of game control.
That ability to play at their pace, control the exchange of field position, get multi-score leads and boat-race opponents stems from RB Travis Etienne. His ability to move first-down markers and find pay dirt (8.0 yards per carry, 18 touchdowns), and the ability of DC Brent Venables and his troops to force three-and-outs at the front of drives or field-goal attempts at the end of them.
3. Five-and-a-Half Points
Clemson doesn’t have to win outright for you to win your point-spread bet! The Clemson Tigers are 12-2 against the spread over their last 14 neutral-site games and 8-2 over their last 10 games as an underdog. Odds last updated at 6:00 p.m. EST.
And that last note includes the 2019 title game when Clemson beat Alabama 44-16. All hail Charles K. McNeil, inventor of the point spread.
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