Clemson Tigers vs. Louisville Cardinals
Thursday night Week 3 of the 2015 college football season will get underway, and to get things started we’ll get a nice ACC match up. Heisman hopeful DeShaun Watson and the Clemson Tigers will travel on the road to take on the Louisville Cardinals. Clemson is coming into this one at 2-0 on the year, while the Cardinals have their backs against the wall, getting off to an 0-2 start to 2015.
Details for Thursday night’s game are below.
Date: Sept. 17
Start Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Location: Louisville, KY
Stadium: Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium
TV Info: ESPN
Live Stream: WatchESPN app
Radio: For Louisville radio affiliates, click here. For Clemson radio affiliates, click here.
Ticket Information: For Louisville ticket info, click here. For Clemson ticket info, click here.
Keys to Victory
Clemson
As many expected, Clemson is off to a pretty hot start to their season. ACC favorites coming in, the Tigers have done nothing yet to make anyone doubt their ability to possibly run the table this season. Through two games this year, Watson and the Tigers offense is averaging 45 points per game, and with what we’ve so far from the Louisville defense, Watson might have a field day through the air. Last week, Louisville struggled to stop the passing attack of Houston, so if Watson and his crew can find a groove in a hostile environment on the road, then this one might get ugly.
Louisville
Right now, Louisville has to be looking themselves in the mirror realizing that Thursday night is do-or-die early in the season. This 0-2 start is really something that a lot of people saw coming, but they can help calm some of the panic if they can knock off the Tigers this week. Of course, as stated above with Clemson, this Louisville defense can’t get beat throughout the night with the passing game. They’re also going to need to force some turnovers to throw this Clemson offense off of their rhythm. The key here is not letting Watson and that side of the ball get into a groove. Ths success of Clemson really begins and ends with the offense, so you have to cut the head off the snake, so to speak.
Can this Louisville offense get that done? That’s doubtful from what we have seen, but with the position they’re in, they really have no choice.
Odds
Point Spread: Clemson -6
Moneyline: Clemson -230, Louisville +210
O/U: 51
Prediction
Quite frankly, this Louisville team so far has not been what we expected they would be coming into the year, while Clemson, so far, has been everything we imagined. This Tigers offense is getting the job done, and Louisville really doesn’t have the personnel on defense to knock them off of that aforementioned rhythm. Clemson should easily walk away from this one at 3-0.
Final Score: Clemson 38, Louisville 17
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