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Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, FL
When: Friday, December 30 at 8:00 pm ET
TV: ESPN
#6 Tennessee Volunteers (10-2) vs. #7 Clemson Tigers (11-2)
A key injury to Tennessee changes the complexion of what should have been a great game—and still might be.
Vegas line/spread: Clemson by 4 1/2 (over/under 61)
Obviously Clemson wouldn't be a touchdown favorite if Tennessee were at full strength, but here we are. The line held pretty steady (down to 6 from 6 1/2) while the over/under has notched down from 64. On game day the line dropped to 4 1/2, while the o/u fell from 63.5 to 61.
Strength power rating: #5 Tennessee 41, #16 Clemson 29
Best/Worst removed: Tennessee 42-28
Turnover corrected: Tennessee 39-30
Our Strength power rating doesn't know what injuries are, just scores. So it picks Tennessee to win by 12 points, blissfully unaware that Tennessee has changed. Note how different the over/under of 64 is from our total of 70.
Removing the extreme games for every team helps Tennessee more as it gets rid of the South Carolina loss, but correcting for turnovers hurts Tennessee as the Vols have benefitted greatly from turnover margin. It's still a 9 point win though.
| Game-comparisons | win % | vs. -6.5 Spread |
| Clemson | 27.6% | 20% |
| Tennessee | 72.4% | 80% |
When the teams are full strength our game-comparison system takes Tennessee almost 3/4 of the time, and 80% of the time against the healthy spread.
When Tennessee has the ball
| Tennessee scoring offense(adj): #1 |
Clemson scoring defense(adj): #20 |
| Tennessee rushing offense(raw): #19 |
Clemson rushing defense(raw): #10 |
| Tennessee passing offense(raw): #3 | Clemson passing defense(raw): #77 |
Tennessee has the best offense in the nation, at least they do when Hendon Hooker (3,135 yards, 27:2) is healthy. Unfortunately that's not the case right now so Joe Milton III (720 yards, 7:0) will fill in. He did ok in the Vanderbilt game, completing 11 of 21 for 147 yards and 1 TD, but mostly he handed the ball off where Tennessee has a strong running game, too (though it's also 430 yards weaker without Hooker). He'll do a lot of handing off now that top WR Jalin Hyatt is opting out. Clemson's defense is sound as always but falls short of its top five national-championship level it reached in the past. The pass defense is particularly suspect, though on a per-attempt basis they rank about #35. And they're not facing Hooker, either.
When Clemson has the ball
| Clemson scoring offense(adj): #26 |
Tennessee scoring defense(adj): #33 |
| Clemson rushing offense(raw): #46 |
Tennessee rushing defense(raw): #19 |
| Clemson passing offense(raw): #74 | Tennessee passing defense(raw): #127 |
Clemson has a solid offense but again it's well short of the quality of the offenses during their Playoff stretch just a few years back. DJ Ulagalelei was QB (2,521 yards, 22:7) the whole year until getting replaced by Cade Klubnik after the South Carolina loss. Klubnik went 20 of 24, 1 TD and rushed for 30 yards and another TD in the big 39-10 win. Ulagalelei quickly entered the transfer portal. And most Clemson fans yawned. Klubnik on paper has a great opportunity against Tennessee's #127 pass defense, but that's illusory as many "raw" figures are: the Vols rush defense is so good that teams take to the air a lot. On a per-attempt basis Tennessee improves to #70. Still not great but Clemson fans should stop salivating.
Special Teams Rank (per ESPN FPI): Tennessee: #13 Clemson: #59
The Vols have an edge here in total, but between individual units there's a lot of variance; for example, Tennessee is a bad punting team but defends kickoffs very well. In the end, that's a great trade-off for a team that rarely punts but kicks the ball off a lot.
Tennessee's season (10-2) • SOS: #22
Non-conf losses: 0 • Home losses: 0
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 6-2
Record vs. top 25 teams: 2-2
- Ball St 59-10
- @Pittsburgh 34-27 OT
- Akron 63-6
- Florida 38-33
- @#17 LSU 40-13
- #5 Alabama 52-49
- Tennessee-Martin 65-24
- Kentucky 44-6
- @#1 Georgia 13-27
- Missouri 66-24
- @#19 South Carolina 38-63
- @Vanderbilt 56-0
Tennessee's chart doesn't look real. It looks like a cartoon, like it's not made up of straight lines. It's a weird chart, with two separate arrays of lines increasing in height. It looks like something Escher would like, if he were into football performance charts. How Tennessee managed to alternate—almost perfectly—between great games and good games, with each becoming a bit better within its own set—is beyond me. Until of course, the outlier on the downside in the South Carolina game. And then, amazingly, the high series reached a new peak even without starting QB Hooker. That's the craziest part yet.
The peak prior to that wasn't the Alabama win but the 40-13 win at LSU. The Alabama game is outside either series I guess, a "pause" in the brutalist monument. Even the loss to Georgia was a new high on the lower series. It's clear from this there are two Tennessee efforts, the good and the great. Somehow the great happened without Hooker in their last game. They're due, i guess, for another peak in the "good" series assuming we can ignore South Carolina. That puts them at about the level of Clemson's last game, maybe.
Clemson (11-2) • SOS: #55
Non-conf losses: 2 • Home losses: 1
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 6-2
Record vs. top 25 teams: 2-2
- @Georgia Tech 41-10
- Furman 35-12
- Louisiana Tech 48-20
- @Wake Forest 51-45 2OT
- #23 North Carolina St 30-20
- @Boston College 31-3
- @#13 Florida St 34-28
- Syracuse 27-21
- @#21 Notre Dame 14-35
- Louisville 31-16
- Miami FL 40-10
- #19 South Carolina 30-31
- =North Carolina 39-10
Clemson played solid and consistent football all year without wowing anyone, and did just enough to play themselves out of a Playoff spot. Is DJ Ulagalelei the reason they couldn't get over the hump? Hard to say, also hard to say whether Klubnik is the savior the fans think he is. He did start in their best game, the win vs. North Carolina for the ACC title, played in Charlotte, NC so partially a road game. But then again, Tennessee had their best game without Hendon Hooker, does that mean Milton is better?
Being a better defensive than offensive team is why they didn't wow anyone—there were no blowouts. Instead they beat teams like Wake Forest in double overtime, NC State 30-20, FSU 34-28, Syracuse 27-21, and Louisville 31-16. Their only blowout of a bowl team happened against North Carolina. Not sure if it proves anything but it seems like a good sign.
Key Injuries / opt-outs / transfer portal
Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker is out with a knee injury. Tennessee's #1 receiver Jalin Hyatt (1,267 yards, 15 TDs) is opting out, as is #4 receiver Cedric Tillman (417 yards).
Clemson QB DJ Ulagalelei entered the transfer portal, as did #4 receiver Beaux Collins (373 yards). On defense, starting defensive end Myles Murphy, starting LB Trenton Simpson, and a few backups on defense are transferring.
Psychology/Motivation - Some speculative factors that may come into play during the game:
- Favorite: Clemson is the favorite largely due to Hendon Hooker's absence. The Tigers are unlikely to be overconfident as they know how good the rest of Tennessee's team is. The Vols might have something to prove, that it wasn't just one guy.
- Location: Miami is pretty neutral for two teams outside of Florida but still in the South.
- Coaching: No changes.
- Motivation: Clemson is having a better year than last year but their standards are sky-high; missing the playoff is still not really acceptable, though the Orange Bowl is a pretty big deal. For Tennessee this is where the program has been trying to get back to for decades—their first 10-win regular season since 2003.
- Momentum: The teams followed the same trajectory all season: lots of wins, a loss that was just a bump in the road, then a killer loss to South Carolina, and a big rebound win.
There's a big difference between Hooker being hurt and if he had gone to the transfer portal in terms of his teammates. Now they can conceivably try to rally around him and win the game for him—and the defense knows it has to carry more of the load than ever. Clemson will just be rallying around a new kid starting at quarterback, and the guy who was starting all year is gone.
And overall the motivational edge has to go to Tennessee. Clemson has been here so often and it's not the Playoff. Tennessee hated missing the Playoff obviously but if you'd told both teams at the beginning of the year they'd be in the Orange Bowl and not the Playoff? Clemson would be disappointed and Tennessee ecstatic.
Final analysis
Tennessee played their best against Vanderbilt without Hooker. How did they do it? By running the ball. The Vols had 362 yards on the ground. That will be tough to do against Clemson, the #10 (raw) rushing defense in the nation. Vanderbilt is #95 (though to be fair they were around #73 before that game). They didn't throw the ball much against Vandy despite the Commodores having the #128 pass defense (and it was #131 before the game). That's a red flag. Or at least an indication that Tennessee can't throw on Clemson either, especially without WR Jalin Hyatt.
It looks like Cade Klubnik will be as good and possibly much better than Ulagalelei. But it's based on a sample of one game, and the general feeling of fans that Klubnik should have started all year. While he may do just as well in the bowl as he did against UNC, it would undoubtedly be better if Ulagalelei were there as an option if Klubnik fizzles. So it does matter that Clemson's starting QB is gone, though obviously it's a very different situation than Tennessee's. Klubnik is clearly the X factor in the game.
And speaking of Tennessee, what do we make of their blowout win over Vanderbilt at the end of the year? No letdown in confidence at all without Hooker. Meanwhile Clemson was better than ever, too, against North Carolina. Here we have two teams with great seasons that just barely missed the playoff because of South Carolina and lots of players on both teams are jumping into the portal...and they might both be peaking!
The biggest mystery of all is Tennessee's defense going from giving up 63 to South Carolina to shutting out Vanderbilt. And it was really Clemson's defense, not the offense, that outperformed in their win over North Carolina. I'm bucking the trend and picking a very low-scoring, defensive affair. After all, both teams lost their quarterback. Tennessee showed their defense can really shine if they are motivated and I think they are. And Clemson can stop the run and won't have nearly as much to worry about through the air. It should still be very close but I'll take the Vols.
Prediction: Tennessee 24, Clemson 22
More previews, odds, and predictions: View the complete 2022-2023 bowl game schedule.
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