Matchup – ACC Champion Clemson vs Big East Champion West Virginia
Road to the Orange Bowl – Clemson: Early in the season, Clemson appeared to eliminate the “That's why your Clemson” problem from its DNA, beating Auburn, Florida St. and Virginia Tech in succession on the way to an 8-0 start. From there, the wheels kind of fell off after getting beating by Georgia Tech before Clemson exposed Virginia Tech as way overrated, blowing them off the field in the ACC Championship Game.
Road to the Orange Bowl – West Virginia: Be the preseason favorite. Given the schedules and the teams beaten, a case can be made for Cincinnati as a better overall team in the Big East 3-team tiebreaker (though not Louisville who lost to Marshall and Florida International). That said, West Virginia has better name value and was the preseason favorite, thus the BCS standings gave the Mountaineers the nod.
Clemson offense vs West Virginia defense: Advantage Clemson
Something Urban Meyer said on one play for Clemson while calling the Clemson-Auburn game back in September still sticks out to me. That play was one part great scheme, one part great execution and one part great recruiting. Just from that play, you could tell Meyer the spread guru was impressed with the Clemson spread offense (so much so that he reportedly tried to hire Clemson OC Chad Morris as his OC before Morris stayed at Clemson) because it gets its best players good matchups and then lets the talent take over as long as they execute it well. West Virginia has had some problems against offenses that execute well, even if they lack talent (see Syracuse destruction of Mountaineers). When one that has talent executes well, West Virginia's beleaguered defense rarely has the answers.
West Virginia offense vs Clemson defense: Advantage West Virginia
The West Virginia spread passing game is really good. Not as good as its cousin at Oklahoma St., but still really good. It was the only passing game all season to find success against the LSU defense (over 400 yards in a losing cause) and it pretty much did the heavy lifting on its own with little to no running game. Against the Clemson defense, it will find a secondary that is flammable at times and a defense that only really shut down Virginia Tech.
Final Verdict: West Virginia is good. Clemson is very good. The talent difference will show here as Sammy Watkins and Tajh Boyd have a field day and the Clemson defense does just enough to win going away.
Clemson 40, West Virginia 27
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