College football analyst Josh Pate has slapped the Clemson Tigers with a brutal reality check before facing the Miami Hurricanes.
The Clemson Tigers are preparing to face the Miami Hurricanes this Saturday and are entering the contest riding a three-game winning streak.
The matchup is at Memorial Stadium, and Clemson's defense has been playing some terrific football lately.
Nevertheless, Miami is favored by 16.5 points and comes into the game boasting the top-ranked offense in the country. The Hurricanes are averaging nearly 600 yards per game, and quarterback Darian Mensah is the Heisman Trophy frontrunner.
So, could the Tigers pull off the upset? Or, at the very least, should Miami be on upset alert heading into the ACC clash?
Renowned college football analyst Josh Pate isn't buying it, giving this game a only "2" rating on the upset alert scale.
Why the lack of belief? Because Pate isn't necessarily sold on Clemson's defense, noting that the one time the Tigers faced a high-level opponent this season (Week 1 against LSU), they surrendered 644 total yards. He also said Miami's offense is better than LSU's.
Additionally, Pate mentioned the fact that Clemson is starting a true freshman quarterback, which could be bad news against the second-ranked defense in the nation.
Not only that, but Pate cited a statistic that throughout Dabo Swinney's 19-year coaching career, this will mark just the sixth time that the Tigers have been double-digit underdogs. They lost all five of the first meetings.
The icing on the cake was Pate noting that Mensah tore apart Clemson last year while he was at Duke, going 27-for-41 with 361 yards and four touchdowns.
Pate concluded his segment by saying he expects Miami to win and cover the spread.
There is no question Pate makes a ton of good points, but I also think it's fair to say that the Tigers look like a very different team now than they did in Week 1.
Also (and Pate did briefly note this), while Miami may lay claim to the No. 1 offense, it also hasn't played any of significance yet.
Wins over Stanford, Florida A&M, Wake Forest and Central Michigan do not exactly qualify as signature victories, and none of those clubs possess the kind of defense Clemson does.
I actually think the Tigers have a better chance in this one than Pate is giving them credit for, and I definitely believe their confidence has increased significantly over the past several weeks.
We'll see if Clemson can prove Pate — and just about everyone else — wrong this weekend.
