Clemson vs Syracuse Odds, Picks | Why to Back the Orange

Clemson looks to rebound from its overtime loss to Florida State when it takes on Syracuse Saturday afternoon.

The Tigers are in uncharted territory, sitting at 2-2 through four games with their ACC and College Football Playoff hopes almost all but vanished. This team is desperate to get a win, but it's going to be a tough, hostile environment in The Dome on Saturday.

Syracuse is 4-0 after beating Army, 29-16, last Saturday. While the Orange have been impressive, this was the easy part of their schedule.

After this game against Clemson, they have back-to-back road trips to North Carolina and Florida State. In other words, this duel on Saturday is incredibly important if they want to have any hope of making the ACC title game.

Cade Klubnik was a highly-touted prospect coming out of high school, but he now has four games against FBS competition where he really hasn't lived up to the hype.

The biggest problem is that Klubnik has only been successful in play action. On snaps that don't involve some type of play action — which is 66.3% of his dropbacks — his completion percentage is 10% less than plays that include play action (61.9%). He's committed all six of his turnover-worthy plays in non-play action sets.

Klubnik is also horrific when he's under pressure, which has been pretty often this season. When he has a clean pocket, he's putting up a 82.0 PFF passing grade, averages 7.9 yards per attempt and has thrown eight touchdowns compared to zero interceptions.

However, when he's under pressure, his PFF passing grade drops to 34.9, his yards per attempt mark drops to 3.9 and he's committed five of his six turnover-worthy plays.

That means Clemson will have to rely more on its run game with veteran Will Shipley, who's having a nice season by averaging 5.6 yards per carry behind an experienced offensive line.

The Clemson defense did lose a lot of talent up front, but as usual with a Dabo Swinney team, it has so much talent and depth across the defensive line that there really shouldn't be a big drop-off.

However, the Tigers have given up some big plays on the ground, as they're outside the top 100 in Rushing Explosiveness Allowed. They're also outside the top 50 in Stuff Rate and Defensive Line Yards, so Syracuse may be able to run the ball on them.

The one problem Clemson has had is allowing teams to finish drives. The Tigers are currently 72nd in that category defensively, allowing 3.4 points per opportunity.

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Garrett Shrader has been on fire to begin this season.

Through four games, he's averaging 9.1 yards per attempt, has seven big-time throws and has a PFF passing grade of 82.2.

Unlike Klubnik, Shrader can actually throw under pressure. On 27.6% of his dropbacks where he's under pressure, he's averaging 13.9 yards per attempt, which is the best mark in college football for quarterbacks who have over 100 dropbacks this season.

Shrader is not only good throwing under pressure, but he's also good at evading it. He had an unreal rushing game against Purdue, with 208 yards on only 15 carries.

While that one game is impressive, he did average 5.2 yards per carry in 2022 — with 27 runs over 10+ yards on only 87 carries — so he's a true dual-threat quarterback who has the ability to move the ball effectively against a defense of the caliber of Clemson.

The Syracuse secondary has been one of the best in college football this season. The Orange are No. 1 in Passing Success Rate Allowed, third in PFF coverage grade and have only allowed opposing quarterbacks to average 5.6 yards per attempt.

Granted, they haven't faced the toughest set of quarterbacks, but Syracuse is also top-25 in Havoc.

The Orange have also done a good job stopping the run, ranking in the top 20 in both Rushing Success Rate Allowed and EPA/Rush Allowed.

Toggle the dropdowns below to hide or show how Clemson and Syracuse match up statistically:

Clemson Offense vs. Syracuse Defense

	Offense	Defense	Edge
Rush Success	13	12
Line Yards	9	30
Pass Success	18	1
Havoc	32	23
Finishing Drives	84	9
Quality Drives	68	7

Syracuse Offense vs. Clemson Defense

	Offense	Defense	Edge
Rush Success	48	13
Line Yards	70	25
Pass Success	20	17
Havoc	63	12
Finishing Drives	34	72
Quality Drives	8	39

Pace of Play / Other

PFF Tackling	43	3
PFF Coverage	41	4
Special Teams SP+	82	24
Middle 8	75	10
Seconds per Play	24.6 (29)	23.2 (9)
Rush Rate	49.5% (84)	56.7% (34)

This would seem like a natural Clemson bounce-back spot after the loss to Florida State, but not as a 6.5-point road favorite against one of the better quarterbacks in the conference.

Shrader is playing with all of the confidence in the world right now and is primed to get revenge for blowing an 11-point fourth quarter lead in 2022 to Clemson.

Klubnik hasn't shown much competency as a passer when facing pressure or simply dropping back and passing in a non-play action set. That's not going to bode well for him when he's facing what's been a top-five secondary this season and a top-25 team at generating Havoc.

So, I love Syracuse in The Dome in what should be a raucous atmosphere.

I only have Clemson projected as a 2.6-point favorite, so I like the value on the Orange at +6.5.