Clemson opened as a 1.5-point favorite at Cal, got bet to a 1.5-point underdog within hours on Sunday, and by Monday Caesars had it at a straight pick’em, -110 either way, with a total of 50. ESPN’s model still says Clemson wins this game 60 percent of the time. The market and the machine disagree, and when that happens in a game nobody has a strong read on, the side the public has soured on is usually where the number is. That is Clemson, and that is my play.
The Tigers (2-1, 1-0 ACC) visit California (2-1, 1-0 ACC) on Friday, September 25, at 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. It is Clemson’s first trip to Berkeley, Cal’s ACC home opener, a Gold Out, and a game the schools have played exactly once, a 37-13 Cal win in the 1992 Citrus Bowl that has nothing to tell you about Friday.
The number
BetOnline, as of Tuesday: Clemson pick’em (-110), Cal pick’em (-110), moneyline -110 each side, total 50 with both sides -110. Other boards are scattered from Clemson -1.5 and 48.5 to Cal -1.5 and 50.5, which tells you the books have not agreed on anything yet. Use one shop and check it Friday.
A pick’em with a 50 total implies 25 points a side. That is a lot of points for a Clemson team scoring 20 a game, and it is about what Cal has done against FBS opponents once you throw out Wagner. Keep those two facts next to each other.
What I will not do is tell you who moved the line from Clemson -1.5 to Cal -1.5. There is no handle data here. What I can tell you is that a three-point swing in a matter of hours on a Sunday, in a game with no injury news to explain it, is the market reacting to how Clemson looks, not to anything Cal did against an FCS team.
What Clemson is right now
Bad in the first half and better after it. That has been the pattern in all three games and the pattern is the handicap.
Clemson went to LSU as a top-five team and lost 51-10. Chris Vizzina threw a pick-six and got pulled, the offense had minus-4 yards and one first down at halftime, and the Tigers did not score a touchdown until the fourth quarter. Then Vizzina hurt his non-throwing elbow in the first quarter against Georgia Southern, true freshman Tait Reynolds finished a 22-7 win in which Nolan Hauser kicked five field goals and the offense could not get into the end zone, and Dabo Swinney named Reynolds the starter on merit. His words: “Tait has passed him and he’s won the job.”
Reynolds’ first start went 20-of-29 for 215 yards, a touchdown and an underthrown interception. Clemson had 29 yards in the first half against North Carolina, trailed 17-3, and was still down 20-15 with 6:34 left after a stadium-record two-and-a-half-hour lightning delay that came with UNC sitting at the Clemson 7. Then Gideon Davidson scored from 8 yards with 5:01 to go, Tyler Brown ripped a 34-yarder with a minute left, and Elliot Washington II picked off Billy Edwards Jr. with 37 seconds on the clock. Final: 28-20. Clemson finished with a season-high 401 yards, 186 on the ground at 5.2 a carry, and Davidson had 105, the program’s first 100-yard rusher of the season.
The three-game numbers are ugly and honest. Clemson averages 297.7 yards and 20 points, 4.8 yards a play, and converts 20 percent of its third downs, dead last in FBS. Reynolds is 40-of-62 for 415 yards, one touchdown, one pick. T.J. Moore has 18 catches, Bryant Wesco Jr. 13. The defense allows 419.7 yards a game, most of it from the LSU disaster, but Will Heldt has two sacks in each of the last two games and the secondary has produced an interception in every game. Hauser is 9-for-9 on field goals.
What Cal is right now
Better on paper than on film, and most of the paper is Wagner.
Cal put up 626 yards and 49 points on Wagner. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele went 27-of-33 for 413 and three scores, Adam Mohammed ran for 91 and two touchdowns and caught a 65-yard score, Kyion Grayes had an 80-yard touchdown, and the Bears did not punt. That is a nice night against a team that gave up 198 yards of offense of its own. It moves Cal’s season averages to 428 yards and 31.3 points a game, and it should move nothing else.
The two FBS games are the sample. Against UCLA, Cal was tied 24-24 late in the third quarter and lost 45-24, giving up 277 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns while turning it over three times. Against Syracuse, Cal won 21-18 while being outgained 436-249, running 60 plays to Syracuse’s 86, and scoring 14 offensive points. Kingston Lopa intercepted Steve Angeli three times, including a 24-yard pick-six that was the difference. Lopa now leads FBS with five picks. He is a real player. He is also not a repeatable 21 points.
Sagapolutele is the reason to like Cal. He threw for 3,454 yards as a freshman, tied the NCAA record with 14 straight 200-yard games to open his career, and is 72-of-108 for 866 yards, seven touchdowns and two picks this year. Chase Hendricks has 20 catches. Mohammed has 285 rushing yards and has not lost a yard on 60 carries, and he is the ACC’s third-leading scrimmage player. Tosh Lupoi’s first team has real skill players.
It does not have a run defense. Cal is allowing 169 rushing yards a game, 5.3 a carry, worst in the ACC, and that number is dragged down by Wagner. UCLA’s top three backs averaged 10.5 a carry. And it does not have a kicking game: 3-of-5 on field goals, a muffed punt, 15th in the conference in net punting, last in punt return average.
The matchup that decides it
Davidson and Brown against that front. Clemson just ran for 186 at 5.2 a carry on a North Carolina defense that is better than Cal’s, and it did so with a freshman quarterback who does not need to throw 35 times if the run game works. Cal has proven it cannot stop a Big Ten ground game and has not been tested by another one. If Clemson runs it 40 times and lets Hauser handle the drives that stall, that is a 24-point offense, and 24 is enough in this game.
The other side is Sagapolutele against a Clemson pass defense that has been the best unit on the field for the Tigers. Washington II and Ashton Hampton both have picks, Heldt is getting home, and UNC’s Edwards went 13-of-31. Clemson’s real defensive weakness is up front: Markus Strong is likely done for the year after lower-leg surgery, Kourtney Kelly is still working back from a spring ACL, and Vic Burley just came off suspension. Mohammed is going to get his yards inside. Whether Cal can turn 5-yard runs into touchdowns is the question, because it managed 14 offensive points at Syracuse and Clemson’s red-zone defense has held up since Baton Rouge.
Then the margins. Hauser 9-for-9 against a Cal kicker at 3-of-5. Clemson’s special teams have been clean; Cal’s have cost it field position in every game. In a game the market has priced at zero, the kicking gap alone is worth more than the number.
Why the public is on Cal, and why I am not
The Cal case is straightforward. Reynolds is a true freshman making his first road start, cross-country, at 10:30 Eastern, behind an offense that cannot convert a third down. Clemson has trailed by double digits in two of three games and needed a weather delay to beat North Carolina. Cal has the better quarterback, the better back, and the ball-hawk. Lupoi’s staff has a week to build a plan around a quarterback with 62 college attempts.
All of that is true, and all of it was true on Saturday night when the line opened Clemson -1.5. What changed was the public’s view of Clemson after a game it won. Meanwhile, Cal’s last two results are a 249-yard offensive night that needed three interceptions and a blowout of Wagner. The model that still favors Clemson by six points of win probability is looking at rosters and yards per play, not narratives, and on those Clemson is the better team at every position group except quarterback.
The travel is real. Clemson’s body clock says 10:30 at kickoff and 1:30 in the morning when this ends. I would take that more seriously if Cal’s offense had shown it could make a road team pay for being flat, and against Syracuse it could not.
Injuries
Vizzina did not play against UNC and is listed questionable for Cal after his elbow needed draining last week. Reynolds is the starter regardless; Swinney has been clear about that, and Vizzina being available would only matter as insurance. Strong is out for the season. Running back Peyton Streko is out for the year and receiver Cole Turner is out for personal reasons. Cal running back Carter Vargas is questionable with a leg injury. The ACC availability reports come out Wednesday and Thursday; the defensive tackle rotation is the Clemson group to check, and the offensive line is the Cal group to check.
Weather is not a factor. Mostly sunny Friday, partly cloudy and mid-50s at night, no wind to speak of.
The pick
Clemson pick’em at -110, and I would play it to -1.5.
I do not think Clemson is a good team. I think it is a team with a better defense, a better offensive line, a better kicker, and a run game that just found itself, playing a team whose run defense has already been exposed and whose offense has scored 14 points in its only close FBS game. The freshman quarterback is the whole reason this is a pick’em instead of Clemson -4, and the freshman quarterback does not have to be the reason Clemson wins. He has to hand it off and not throw it to Lopa. That is a reasonable ask against a defense that gave up 277 on the ground to UCLA.
What beats me: Reynolds throws two picks, Cal gets a short field and a special-teams score, and Sagapolutele has the kind of night he had against Wagner against a Clemson secondary that is missing its interior push. That is a real outcome and the Sunday line move says a lot of people expect it. At even money, with the ESPN model on my side and the kicking edge on my side, I will take the version where Clemson does what it did in the fourth quarter against North Carolina for four quarters.
On the total, I lean under 50. Clemson’s FBS games have gone 61, 29 and 48, and the 61 was LSU. Cal’s have gone 69 and 39. Clemson’s third-down rate means short drives and punts, Cal’s kicking means missed points, and neither offense has shown it can score 25 on a defense with a pulse. I would rather play the side, but under 50 at -110 is a defensible second position.
Prediction: Clemson 24, Cal 20.
Best bet: Clemson pick’em (-110). Lean: Under 50.
Odds from Caesars, retrieved September 21, and subject to change. Confirm the spread at your book, both ACC availability reports and Vizzina’s status before kickoff.