Early Clemson vs SMU Predictions, Picks, and Odds for ACC Championship

The Clemson Tigers will look to snag a spot in the College Football Playoff as a conference winner when they take on the SMU Mustangs for the ACC Championship at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Saturday night.

The Mustangs have been underrated all year long, but I expect them to make it clear they are the class of the ACC, as I’ll break down in my Clemson vs. SMU predictions below.

Here are my free college football picks for December 7. 

Clemson vs SMU predictions

Early spread lean
SMU -2.5 (-110 at BetMGM)

My analysis
While it’s hardly as though SMU has been entirely overlooked this year, it does feel like the Mustangs aren’t getting the respect a one-loss team out of a Power 4 conference deserves. Their only loss came three months ago to the BYU Cougars, they're outscoring opponents by nearly 20 points per game, and they have some clear strengths on both sides of the ball.

On offense, SMU can attack teams in both the running and passing games. Running back Brashard Smith has hussled for 6.0 yards per carry and 14 touchdowns this year, while quarterback Kevin Jennings has led one of the most efficient aerial attacks in the country, picking up 9.1 yards per passing attempt.

Defensively, the Mustangs have been good all over, but are particularly effective against the run. They’ve allowed just 2.8 yards per rush. Many teams have tried to keep some sort of offensive balance against SMU this year, but it has been to no avail; The TCU Horned Frogs are the only team that has scored more than 28 points against the Mustangs this season, and that happened back in September.

Clemson isn’t having a bad year by any means, especially after an early blowout loss to the Georgia Bulldogs had people questioning whether Dabo Swinney could ever build the Tigers into a national title threat again. But they have shown far more vulnerability than the Mustangs throughout the campaign.

Late season losses to the Louisville Cardinals and the South Carolina Gamecocks have highlighted this. In both games, the Clemson offense failed to score more than 21 points, a worrying sign against good — but not great — competition.

Junior quarterback Cade Klubnik is having a great year, but if the Tigers can’t run the ball against the imposing SMU defensive front, they may again struggle to score.

I can’t see the Mustangs losing this one to a Clemson team that simply isn’t playoff quality. I’m taking SMU to cover, especially if the line remains below a field goal.

Early Over/Under lean
Under 56.5 (-105 at BetMGM)

My analysis
I spent a lot of the above section talking about the problems the Clemson offense might have with the SMU defense. The Mustangs have given up a total of 13 points over the last two weeks and are allowing an average of 19.8 ppg on the season.

This will be one of the tougher tests the Tigers will have faced this season, and we’ve seen them struggle to generate much of anything against other top-tier defenses like Georgia. 

But if there’s one obvious blemish on the SMU resume, it’s that it hasn’t played many teams as good as Clemson, either. The Mustangs rank 75th in strength of schedule, and their best wins might be against the Louisville Cardinals and Pittsburgh Panthers — neither of which look all that amazing now. 

While SMU’s offense looked fine in both of those games, it struggled mightily in the loss to BYU. The Cougars held the Mustangs to just 261 yards of total offense and 15 points, all of which came from Collin Rogers field goals. 

That doesn’t have me concerned SMU will lose on Saturday, but it does make me suspect they won’t be able to run up the score. Clemson is decent enough on defense, allowing 5.5 yards per play and holding opposing passers to a 54.8% completion percentage.

Clemson has also hit the Under in seven of its last eight games, while SMU has played to the Under in its final two games of the season. I expect those trends to continue in this conference title matchup.

Clemson vs SMU live odds

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