Somebody’s Gotta Win: Clemson vs. UNC Preview / Prediction

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — College football is at its best when tradition collides with absurdity, and that’s exactly what we’re getting Saturday at noon on ESPN. Clemson, the program that once looked like the most frightening cult this side of Jonestown (with slightly better tailgating), heads into Chapel Hill to face North Carolina, where the “wine and cheese” crowd is still pretending to care about football while dreaming of basketball season.

This isn’t your typical Clemson–UNC matchup. It’s two programs that feel lost in their own identities. Clemson is sitting at 34th in Sagarin (78.35), a veteran-heavy squad with all the experience in the world but an offense that couldn’t catch a fish if you dropped it in the Atlantic. Meanwhile, UNC is dragging along at 79th (68.11), somehow worse than mediocre despite Bill Belichick wandering the sidelines in a polo shirt, coaching like he’d rather be at a Nantucket brunch. Vegas has Clemson as a 14.5-point road favorite, with the total at 46.5, but if you’ve watched either of these teams in 2025, you know nothing comes easy.

Clemson: The Cult Has Gone Stale

It wasn’t long ago Clemson was the scariest program in the country. Orange-clad fans filled Death Valley, convinced Dabo had harnessed the power of scripture, recruiting, and two elite quarterbacks to create a dynasty. It was like a church service with shoulder pads.

Now? It’s a mid-tier ACC program pretending the magic is still there. Their quarterback, once billed as the next big thing, has turned into a turnover machine with the accuracy of a paper airplane in a hurricane. Clemson fans still chant “All In” like it’s 2018, but the truth is this offense is “All Out” when it comes to producing points.

Let’s be clear: this team is veteran-led, experienced, and supposedly talented. They’ve got seniors all over the offensive line and playmakers who once had stars next to their names. But if you can’t score, none of it matters. The Tigers are averaging fewer than 21 points per game, an absolutely comical number for a program that used to shred defenses with Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence.

It’s the kind of regression that makes you wonder if Clemson isn’t a dynasty but rather the football version of Blockbuster Video: dominant for a few years, then irrelevant because it refused to modernize.

UNC: Belichick and the Circus

On the other sideline, North Carolina football has reached new levels of bizarre. The Tar Heels decided to make the splash hire of all splash hires, bringing in Bill Belichick, a man who looked like he would rather coach special teams in Foxborough until the sun explodes than step into the fried-Chick-fil-A-and-frat-party world of college ball.

To say it hasn’t worked is putting it lightly. Belichick’s stoic demeanor looks even stranger against a backdrop of Carolina blue pom-poms and students who are mostly worried about their basketball tickets. The offense is bland, the defense is vanilla, and Carolina fans are starting to wonder if they didn’t just pay NFL retirement money for a coach who forgot the forward pass exists.

Oh, and then there’s the “Belichick circus.” His high-profile girlfriend, his odd press conferences, and his general disdain for college football culture make this all feel like an elaborate performance art piece. UNC is basically running a social experiment: what if you dropped the NFL’s greatest defensive mind into a college job and forced him to deal with recruiting, NIL, and 19-year-olds who leave practice to make TikToks? The answer, so far, is 2-2 and no hope.

The Math

Sagarin says Clemson is better by 10.24 points (subtract UNC’s 68.11 from Clemson’s 78.35 rating). Add 5.14 points for UNC being at home, and the spread by the numbers is Clemson -5.1 points.

That’s a long way from Vegas’ -14.5 line, which means either the books think UNC is truly that bad, or Clemson is still being graded off name value and preseason expectations. Based on what we’ve seen, it’s probably both.

Vegas had the Tigers pinned to near perfection at Georgia Tech, listing them as a (-2.5) favorite up to kickoff. However, Clemson got (-17.5) against Syracuse in Week 4 and 30+ against Troy in Week 2.

The Tigers have yet to cover or really come all that close.

Fade the Tigers again? We sure seem to think so. The only caveat is that Clemson is coming off a bye week to regroup, but the Tigers failed to do so after their first loss, a bad performance against Troy or the loss to Tech.

If not now, when? Probably not this season.