National Spotlight: Louisville faces Clemson

The last two years Clemson split season-opening games against Georgia of the SEC that were followed by one-sided wins over South Carolina State.

The visiting Tigers might recover from a loss in the ACC Atlantic, but Clemson won’t be in the conversation for a College Football Playoff berth. Can Louisville avoid an 0-3 start? Further adding to the muddle is Louisville’s 0-2 record that I asked you to ignore earlier.

Clemson center Ryan Norton sprained a medial collateral ligament (MCL) in a knee during Monday’s practice and will miss Thursday night’s game at Louisville.

Clemson was No. 2 in the nation in pass defense previous year and, although they’ve played low-level competition, the Tigers are fourth this season, yielding just 92.5 yards per game. In fact, Swinney is 4-1 in Thursday night games on ESPN, with the last victory coming at Wake Forest a year ago , 34-20. After a successful ACL surgery in the offseason, the so-called “Quarterback of the Future” Watson has showed off his improved passing skills this season. That was also on a short week. Watson was able to do this even without the Tigers star receiver Mike Williams, who is out with a neck injury. The Cardinals haven’t exactly stopped the run through the first two games, but held Auburn’s vaunted attack to 191 yards on 41 carries.

Gallman’s 171 yards through two games rank seventh in the ACC, and he has three touchdowns on the ground. That will not be the case tonight as an older, stronger and healthier Watson leads an incredibly talented Clemson offense against a Louisville defense that isn’t the same as previous year . “They were a pretty talkative team, and to have one of our running backs lay the wood to one of their guys was great to see”.

On the upside for Louisville, Clemson does still have some unknown quantities at this point, with rebuilt lines and question marks at kicker and punter.

The first two non-conference games could be quickly forgotten, and the Cards could immediately reestablish themselves as contenders in the league.

Bolin came on in relief of Jackson against Houston and did very well throwing for 157 yards on 18 attempts with a touchdown and no interceptions. But this is a bigger must win game for Louisville. Do that against Deshaun WatsonDeshaun WatsonSo. If they can’t then its going to be a long day.

“We don’t have any illusions going up there that this isn’t going to be a 60-minute, all-in, all-hands-on-deck slugfest”, Swinney said. Most of the plays will be down the field. To keep everything apples to apples, orange bowls to orange bowls, it’s more statistically significant for this bet that Dabo Swinney took over Clemson in 2009 than anything that’s taken place in Northern Kentucky during that stretch.

The schedule has worked out well for Clemson, which has been able to afford plenty of its younger talent playing time in wins over Wofford and Appalachian State.

Heightening the current anxiety was the mystery surrounding Louisville’s quarterbacks.