After two weeks of 1-2 Wolfpack Wager records, it’s time to get back on track with a winning week. NC State has all the momentum and looks to upset Virginia this weekend, as does Georgia Tech, but Louisville might be too much to handle, and in one of the top ACC games of the year, Clemson and Miami will surely slow down their scoring in South Carolina.
NC State at Virginia (-9.5) (Total: 60.5)
I certainly don’t want to attempt to ride the NC State football wagon just yet, considering I don’t fully trust the offense to continue to perform like it did against Wake Forest and Pittsburgh, but 10 points seems too high.
Clemson’s Travis Etienne ran for 73 yards and added another 114 in the air against Virginia last week. As correspondent Kevin Sebastian said in his NC State offense preview, sophomore Zonovan Knight and junior Ricky Person Jr. are not Etienne, but they should be effective enough to put up numbers against the Cavaliers.
All NC State needs to do is to be effective on the ground, and it should open up the field enough for redshirt sophomore Devin Leary to do his thing and have a similar game to his 336-yard, four-touchdown performance last Saturday against the Panthers.
On the other side of the ball, Virginia has dual-threat quarterback Brennan Armstrong, the team’s second-leading rusher, who threw for 270 and 269 yards in two games. The Pack will struggle a little bit to contain him in the pocket, but he shouldn’t throw it by the secondary too often. Just as important for the Wolfpack, Armstrong has thrown two interceptions in each of his first two games.
This should be a close game to the end, and NC State has a lot of momentum after a huge win last week — if you believe in that sort of thing.
Pick: NC State +9.5
Louisville (-4) at Georgia Tech (Total: 64)
After a hot start from Georgia Tech, or at least however hot you want to call a three-point win over Florida State to start the season, the Yellow Jackets have fallen in back-to-back weeks to UCF and Syracuse. The UCF loss is understandable, but losing 37-20 to an Orange team that looked miserable against UNC and Pittsburgh, tells me this team can’t consistently compete this year.
Louisville, on the other hand, is also 1-2, with a season-opening win vs. Western Kentucky and consecutive losses to Miami and Pitt. The Cardinals kept both of those losses close against two of the more difficult ACC opponents, so they should be out for blood this weekend.
Against Pitt, Louisville quarterback Malik Cunningham threw three interceptions and was sacked seven times by a Pitt defense that had 17 sacks through the first three games. Georgia Tech averages two sacks per game but certainly won’t put as much pressure on Cunningham as the Panthers did. Limit the turnovers, and Louisville wins it easily.
Pick: Louisville -4
Miami at Clemson (-14) (Total: 63.5)
This should be an interesting game, with Clemson getting its first big test of the season against Miami, the second-best team it has on the schedule behind Notre Dame. It’s no surprise the Tigers are 3-0, out-scoring their opponents 127-36, but Miami is having a similar 3-0 season, out-scoring opponents 130-58.
This game might be a little closer than 14 points, but I think that will better serve the total points scored in this game. The Hurricanes are averaging 43.3 points, just above Clemson’s 42.3 average, but both offenses will surely trip a couple times against better defenses.
The last two times these two teams faced each other, Clemson has dominated: 38-3 in 2017 and 58-0 in 2015. If nothing else, at least recent history is on the side of the under, even with what is probably a better Miami offense.
Pick: Under 63.5
Last week, I went 1-2 by hitting the over in the NC State-Pitt game, but Navy and Virginia Tech failed to cover the spread.
Wolfpack Wager 2020 Record: 2-4
Will Thornhill: 1-2
Camden Speight: 1-2
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