Clemson vs. NC State Tigers Win 26-14 Over Wolfpack: ESPN College Football Thursday

The Clemson Tigers are a sleeper national title contender out of the ACC and if the team wants to stay in that conversation, they will have to find a way to defeat the NC State Wolfpack on Thursday night in a meeting of two 2-0 teams.

The teams are playing their first ACC game of the season and it comes at a great time for Clemson, as they are playing some great football through two games and the offense with Tajh Boyd has been on fire, dropping 38 and 52 points over the first two games and racking up tons of yards. The team won a tough game to start the season 38-35 against then number five ranked Georgia and they followed it up with an explosion against South Carolina State.

Click here for the live stream for NC State and Clemson from ESPN or for more on Clemson and their past games from SWR.

The team knows it needs to get past this game and they also know that the last time Clemson and the Wolfpack faced off it was another offensive game that turned into a shootout. The game less than a year ago featured touchdowns of all types of variety as the Tigers finished with the win over the Wolfpack by the score of 62-48, one of the craziest games of last season. One of the main reasons that the team was able to pull out the victory was the play of Boyd, who brought back Clemson from an early deficit to get the win.

Clemson has a tough schedule this season in the ACC and they have two very strong SEC opponents as well as the cream of the crop in their own conference. The Tigers opened with the win against the Georgia Bulldogs and then later this season in the final week of the year, the team will play Jadeveon Clowney and the South Carolina Gamecocks. The team will play NC State on Thursday night and then they have a road game against Syracuse, who are still recovering from losing Ryan Nassib, Justin Pugh and head coach Doug Marrone to the NFL.

The team has a very tough ACC schedule following the Syracuse game, as they will host Boston College at home, never easy, and then they will play Florida State in one of the most anticipated matchups of the year on October 19. The team should be in contention and so should the Seminoles at that point, making the outcome very significant for the conference.

The Tigers then travel for back to back games against Maryland and Virginia and then they will host Georgia Tech in a game that will be on ESPN. The team then has an easy game against Citadel before playing the Gamecocks to end things. NC State has been impressive so far this season over two games, although last week against Richmond was way too close for comfort. The team is gaining nearly 500 yards per game despite losing Mike Glennon to the NFL and they also put up nice numbers against Louisiana Tech to open the season.

The team has their first test of the season with number three Clemson and this would be a hueg upset if they can win. The team then plays Central Michigan at home before travelling to Wake Forest and then they host Syracuse. The Seminoles are next on the road and the rest of the season includes tough road games against Duke and Boston College. Boyd will be the primary focus in this game and should be the difference Thursday night.

The game against NC State will air on ESPN at 7:30 PM and will be in North Carolina at Carter-Finley Stadium. Check here for the Clemson and NC State live streaming coverage from ESPN on the Watch ESPN website.