Can Clemson Cover? Dissecting the Spread for the Aflac Kickoff Game

Last weekend was the kickoff of the 2024 college football season, but tomorrow marks the unofficial start of the season. The Aflac Kickoff Game has become the centerpiece of Labor Day Weekend, and this year’s matchup pairs 2 of the only 3 active coaches who have won a national championship against each other. Clemson vs Georgia has been a historic rivalry, and this year’s edition looks to be no different. Defensively, Georgia and Clemson don’t look that different from each other. Both have dominated the NFL draft in recent memory. The other side of the ball is a different story. Georgia returns most of their production from last year, when they averaged almost 40 points a game and 500 yards during the regular season. Clemson, on the other hand, is longing for a return to the high-flying days of Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson. 

In this post, we want to take a look at the spread in this game and think about what that means statistically for each team. We’re not going very far beyond game level numbers, and we certainly aren’t getting into X’s and O’s. But you may find this approach useful when thinking about making a bet to wear an orange or red jersey with your buddy from the other side. 

To begin with, neither of these teams are that different than last year. Georgia hopes to be a little better offensively, but the floor was already pretty high. Clemson, on the other hand, has a little more room to improve. Given that, we think last year’s baseline is going to be very relevant for the start of this season. So, let’s get to it! 

Georgia is favored in this game by 13.5 points, and the over-under is 49.5. This means that Vegas thinks Georgia is going to win 31.5 - 18 (let’s assume scoring half a point was possible). What does this mean for each team?  

Let's start with when Georgia has the ball. Last year Bulldogs averaged almost 68 plays per game, and over 38 points per game. That equates to 1.8 plays per point. Those were Georgia’s averages last season, but they’re not playing their average opponent from last year, they’re playing Clemson, who held teams to 62 plays and 29 points per game – That's 3.1 plays per point. So now let’s think about what the spread implies. Let’s say Georgia’s offense and Clemson’s defense meet in the middle and run 65 plays. Remember, Vegas has predicted Georgia to score 31.5 points, so if Georgia runs 65 plays, then they will average 2.1 plays per point on Saturday. As you may recall, Georgia averaged 1.8 plays per point last season. Last year the best defense Georgia faced was Alabama, who held them to 2.5 plays per point – so 2.1 plays per point is not out of the realm of possibilities. 

As for Clemson, last year their offense struggled, and they are still light years away from the production they saw in the 5 years where Watson and Lawrence were taking snaps. They averaged a mediocre 2.5 plays per point (7th best in the ACC), but were 5th in points per game, which means they made up for their lack of productivity and explosiveness by running a lot of plays – 77 plays per game, to be precise. Georgia’s defense last year was effective at limiting plays – opponents averaged 61 plays per game against them. Let’s assume again that the Clemson offense and Georgia defense meet in the middle, and Clemson runs 69 plays. That implies 3.8 plays per point if they were to score the Vegas predicted 18 points.  

The chart below shows the implied plays per point with sensitivity to the number of plays run by each team. With plays per point, lower is better, so the y-axis is inverted (smaller numbers on top, bigger numbers on bottom). It seems to me that Vegas believes the Georgia defense is going to affect Clemson’s offense more than Clemson’s defense can slow down Georgia’s offense. 

Personally, I think 3.8 plays per point is a big departure from Clemson’s baseline offense. I’m going to go with 70 plays for Clemson at 3.0 plays per point. I like the 31 point total for Georgia, which means I like Clemson to cover.  

Dawgs win 31 - 23

Enjoy Week 1, folks! 

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