Sports Today 11/6/2014

Today kicks off Week 10 of the NFL season and Week 11 of the college football season. We have a good match-up in the NFL and a Top 25 team playing on the road in college football.

NFL
Cleveland at Cincinnati - 7:25 PM Central - NFL Network
This is a huge match-up in the best top to bottom division in the NFL. Cleveland is sitting at 5-3 and right in the middle of the wildcard battle, but a win tonight will put them right in the mix to win the division. Cincinnati sitting at 5-2-1 is leading the division, but a loss tonight would push then to third in the division and on the outside looking in of the wildcard battle. Statistically these teams are very similar; Cincinnati averages 10 more yard of offense a game, while Cleveland averages giving up 3 less yards. When it comes to scoring Cincinnati scores 24.3 points a game compared to 23.1 by Cleveland, but the Cleveland defense gives up 21.1 points per game compared to 23.4 by Cincinnati. When you have a game this close against division rivals I have to go with the home team. Cincinnati will stay on top of the AFC North with a 28-24 win. 


College Football
#21 Clemson at Wake Forest - 6:30 PM Central - ESPN
On paper this does not look a great game and in all reality will have no impact on the national championship picture, but strange things happen to ranked teams on the road for Thursday night games on ESPN. Clemson is sitting at 5-2 with their only losses on the road to ranked Georgia and Florida State. Since Clemson is in the same division as Florida State the chances of them making up 1 loss in the ACC will be tough, but since they lost to Florida State they would need to make up two to make the ACC championship game. The hope for Wake Forest is that Clemson has had problems scoring in their past few games. The problems Wake Forest has had problems scoring as well and on top of that keeping teams from scoring. This may be the reason they are 0-4 in the ACC and 2-6 overall with one of their wins coming against a 4-5 FCS team. As I said anything is possible on a Thursday night home ESPN game, but I don't think it will happen this week. This game could be over by the time the NFL game kicks off. Clemson wins big 31-10.