What Vegas Thinks: Clemson still ACC favorite, but spread against NC State narrows

After a narrow win over Georgia Tech, No. 9 Clemson dropped some in oddsmakers’ power ratings, but not much. The Tigers are still strong favorites against N.C. State this week.

ESPN Chalk gambling writer David Purdum discusses Clemson’s current betting line against the Wolfpack and updated ACC championship odds.

The State: Clemson just got by Georgia Tech. How do sportsbooks react after such a close game when the spread was so large?

David Purdum: They were a little concerned about it. I talked to the guys at Circa Sports, which is the first sportsbook to put up weekly college football numbers in Las Vegas. And they lowered Clemson’s power ratings about a field goal. They also did that with Alabama a little bit because of their closer win (against Florida). Matt Metcalf, he’s the sports director at Circa, he just said that he thought maybe the upper tier of teams, your Georgias, Clemsons, Alabamas, Ohio States, maybe Oklahoma, maybe they are not that much greater, much of a bigger gap than the rest of the college football landscape. So he did drop the power ratings on Clemson three points along with some of the other bigger teams.

TS: How has the Clemson vs N.C. State line changed so far? And given that N.C. State has been much improved, do you see that line kind of shrinking to single digits by Saturday?

DP: It could. It opened at 12. And it got bet down. It was a difficult line for the guys at Circa Sports to post, they said. They thought they were either going to be a few points too low or too high. The market has settled back at 9 1/2. So there has been some line movement on that. And it has been toward North Carolina State.

TS: Did Clemson’s odds of winning the ACC championship change at all or are they still pretty steady since the team is winning? They were -400 last week.

DP: Clemson is -350 now (or 2/7 odds). It did come down a little bit. So again, the underachieving performance against Georgia Tech did have a little bit of impact on Clemson’s perception in terms of the odds. Now, that game was a little weird, right, had a pretty lengthy weather delay. There’s still the overwhelming favorite. The perception is that maybe the gap between Clemson and the other teams in the ACC and the other teams in the nation, for that matter, has narrowed slightly.

TS: Who’s closed that gap in the ACC? North Carolina?

DP: North Carolina is second, at 5-1. Virginia Tech took a little step back with their loss. They’re 14-1, Miami is 12-1. NC State, this week’s opponent, is 40-1.

TS: Nationwide, what do you think will be the most heavily betted games this week?

DP: I think that Wisconsin-Notre Dame game will generate a lot of interest. I do think that Clemson-North Carolina State game, a lot of people were kind of eyeing that before N.C. State lost to Mississippi State. But you know, Clemson’s domination over the ACC has been impressive. I looked at the last 30 games, they’re 29-1 in ACC play in their last 30. And they’re 21-9 against the spread during that stretch. They’ve been a dominant force in the ACC. I would expect that game to attract a little bit of interest. Really, it’s kind of a tough slate this week. There’s not a lot of good games, for sure. I think everybody’s looking to next week when we get Ole Miss-Alabama.