Louisville vs. Clemson: Game Preview, Prediction and Players to Watch
Is it the game of the year? If not, it's as close as we've gotten so far during the 2016 season.
The first battle of Top Five teams this fall is set for Saturday night, with No. 5 Clemson hosting No. 3 Louisville in a game that not only puts the winner in the driver's seat for the ACC Atlantic Division but also sets the victor up as a top contender to make the College Football Playoff.
Clemson's been there before, having reached the national championship game last season. The Tigers (4-0, 1-0 ACC) haven't lost an ACC game since November 2014, and they remain the team to beat in the league until someone picks them off, something Louisville (4-0, 2-0) is aiming to do just two weeks after blowing out fellow ACC power Florida State 63-20.
This is only the third all-time meeting between the schools, with the other games coming in 2014 and 2015 and won by Clemson by six and three points, respectively.
Viewing Information
Date: Saturday, Oct. 1
Time: 8 p.m. ET
Place: Memorial Stadium; Clemson, South Carolina
TV: ABC
Spread: Clemson -3.5 (per Odds Shark)
Louisville Keys to Victory
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Keep the pedal down
A huge part of Louisville's hot start has been the speed at which it comes out of the gate on offense but also that it never seems to let up. The Cardinals have scored within the first 4:03 of each game, doing so on the first drive three times, and have outscored their opponents 77-10 in the opening quarter.
Clemson has allowed only a field goal in the first 15 minutes this season, scoring 48 points of its own.
Louisville doesn't ease off the gas after building an early lead, adding another 84 points in the second quarter with no less than 35 in the first half of each game.
Flood the secondary
After becoming the first player in FBS history to throw for 4,000 yards and rush for 1,000, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson has been less inclined to run the ball this season. He doesn't need to with such a deep corps of receivers.
Three different Tigers—Ray-Ray McCloud, Artavis Scott and Mike Williams—have caught at least two passes in all four games, and eight different players have been targeted for touchdowns.
As critical as it is to keep an eye on Watson to make sure he doesn't scramble, blanketing Clemson's many receiving targets is also of high importance.
Clemson Keys to Victory
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Limit Lamar
Easier said than done, that's for sure. Quarterback Lamar Jackson hasn't been declared the September Heisman Trophy winner for nothing.
Clemson ranks third in total defense for a reason, because to this point, it's been able to neutralize each opponent's strength and force it to look elsewhere. When it comes to Jackson, that means keeping him in the pocket and forcing him to be exclusively a passer.
For as gaudy of numbers as he's put up, Jackson is only completing 58.7 percent of his passes. It he isn't able to use the run as a weapon—or even just the threat of it—he's demoted from superhuman status to just being a really good player.
Establish the run
Clemson has averaged 159.5 rushing yards per game and 4.17 yards per carry in 2016, good enough for 85th and a tie for 87th, respectively. Last year, the Tigers ran for 223 yards per game and 4.93 per carry, with 34 touchdowns in 15 games compared to just four this season.
While not having Deshaun Watson take off on designed runs as much is partly the cause for this dip, so has been the poor performance of junior Wayne Gallman. Last year, he set the Clemson single-season rushing record with 1,527 yards on 5.4 yards per carry, but he's managed only 256 yards this fall, with 123 coming in the opener against Auburn.
Not being able to have the run to fall back on has impacted the passing game, with opponents less inclined to bite on play fakes and thus able to sit back in coverage. Watson's completion rate, which was 67.8 in 2015, is 60 percent this season.
Louisville Players to Watch
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Lamar Jackson
If national awards were based on just the first month of the season, Jackson would be taking home quite a bit of hardware. The sophomore quarterback has been far and away the best player in college football so far, averaging 464 yards of total offense per game while accounting for 25 touchdowns (13 passing, 12 rushing).
"That'd tie him for third nationally among teams," Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee noted.
Jackson's big numbers aren't simply a matter of volume, as the yards and scores have come on only 187 offensive plays. His 16 runs of 10-plus yards are tied for second nationally, and his 14 completions of 30 or more yards ties for No. 1 in FBS with California's Davis Webb.
Devonte Fields
It's been a relatively slow start for the senior linebacker, with just two sacks and an interception in four games. But based on how Fields performed for the Cardinals last season, he's ready to break through at any moment.
Fields, who began his career at TCU—and was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year as a freshman in 2012—had 11 sacks and 22.5 tackles for loss in 2015. He had 10.5 sacks and 18 tackles for loss in Louisville's final seven games, when it went 6-1 after a 2-4 start.
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Clemson Players to Watch
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Deshaun Watson
All of the attention and accolades Jackson has received this fall, that was Watson throughout the 2015 season. And because of that, what he's done in Clemson's first four games has been graded on a much steeper curve since he's being compared to his past numbers.
The junior has thrown for 996 yards with nine touchdowns and four interceptions on 60 percent passing, adding 120 rushing yards. Those numbers aren't that different from where he was at this point last season, with 725 passing yards and nine TDs with four picks (on 68.7 percent passing) with 186 rushing yards and a score.
It was later on in 2015 that Watson began to take off, with the fourth game against Notre Dame (93 yards and a TD) when his running really started to make an impact.
Carlos Watkins
In an otherwise young and inexperienced front seven, Carlos Watkins stands out as the senior leader Clemson has needed to bridge the gap from last year's talented defense to the one on the field now. The 6'3", 305-pound senior defensive tackle seems to have no trouble taking on this leadership role or being able to perform under a larger spotlight.
Watkins has three of the Tigers' 13 sacks this season, nearly matching his 2015 total of 3.5. His first career sack came last year in the 20-17 win at Louisville.
A strong run-stopper who is also agile enough to get off blocks and into the backfield, Watkins will try to plug up the middle and take away one of Jackson's key running lanes.
What They're Saying
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Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney on the excitement surrounding his team's first game against a ranked opponent in 2016 (h/t TigerIllustrated.com): "We've had a couple home games already, but to have a night game here is something that we always look forward to. To have a matchup like this, GameDay, this has a bit more pizzazz. I know our fans love that. For us it's business as usual, but I am happy for our fans."
Chris Fallica, better known as Bear from ESPN's College GameDay, told SB Nation's Mike Rutherford this is the fourth time GameDay is emanating from an ACC game involving two Top Five teams. If past history is an indicator, Louisville might be in for a big night, as Fallica said the road team has won by 17-plus points the previous three contests.
This is head coach Bobby Petrino's second go-around with Louisville, where he coached from 2003-06. Though he's called the Cardinals a "destination job," he's often one of the first names to get mentioned when other major openings pop up. So it's no surprise he was asked on Monday about the LSU vacancy:
"I'm not interested in going anywhere. I'm very fortunate to be the head coach here at the University of Louisville, very happy about that. I'm very glad that I got the support of our athletic director, Tom Jurich. We were able to sit down last year and do a new contract. We're going to expand the stadium. We're coming off one of the greatest crowds and Card Marches that I've been around, and we feel like we've got everything going in the right direction. This is the job I want. This is where I'm going to be.
"
Prediction
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For the first three weeks of 2016, a common sentiment when it came to Clemson was that it didn't look nearly as good as the previous season. The Tigers appeared to be dealing with the same thing that many other recent national championship game participants have experienced—trying to one-up themselves and falling short.
And then Clemson went to Georgia Tech, where it hadn't won in more than a decade, and easily won while putting up its best performance of the season. This comes just in time for its toughest matchup yet, against an opponent that has been nothing short of dominant so far.
Louisville's lopsided results have been impressive, particularly the 43-point win over Florida State in Week 3, but that came at home. The Cardinals have played on the road twice, but being in front of 32,000 fans at Syracuse and 40,000 at Marshall doesn't have the same feel as playing at Clemson's Death Valley.
Clemson has won 18 straight at Memorial Stadium—the second-longest active streak in FBS behind Florida State's 22 in a row at home. The Tigers have won 15 of those games by double digits.
Louisville's hopes rest in another fast start, but Clemson will be just as amped up to prevent that and thus set the tone for a defensive-minded win.
Clemson 27, Louisville 20
All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports unless otherwise noted. All statistics provided by CFBStats.com unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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