Life after Deshaun Watson was always going to be hard for Clemson. Watson, a three-year standout that solidified Clemson’s rise to national prominence, is the best quarterback in school history and one of the few college quarterbacks to slay the mighty Alabama dragon.
Finding another Deshaun Watson was never in the cards for Clemson, but coach Dabo Swinney has found another way for his team to be a national title contender. Swinney, with the help of a tremendously talented and deep roster that he and his staff recruited, has modeled his team after his College Football Playoff rival: Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide.
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Now, the Tigers are built like the Alabama Crimson Tide. And they have the defensive talent to win like them too.
Athletes on the perimeter
While Alabama has been known for dominating defensive interior players, it has always been their defense’s ability to limit perimeter plays and direct running backs and read-option quarterbacks into the teeth of their front seven defenders. Strong cornerback tacklers, active and aggressive safeties coming up field and balanced, body-controlled defensive ends all allow for edge rushes to be negated. Clemson has shown off those same strengths in 2017.
The goal of read options, reverses and screen passes is to force defenses to stretch horizontally, putting their defensive backs in isolation plays against blockers and their defensive linemen off balance. But Clemson, led by do-it-all defensive end Austin Bryant, thrives in space and persistently shuts down plays designed to work the perimeter.
Virginia Tech stuck with the screen and perimeter run/pass game throughout their offensive drives against Clemson, but struggled to find consistent spacing to sustain longer drives. Outside of one or two big runs and a handful of inside screen plays, the Virginia Tech perimeter run and short-passing game, one of the best in the country, was rendered incapable.
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Constant pressure disrupts timing
When watching the Clemson defense work, it’s laughably difficult to guess who the team’s most talented defender is. Christian Wilkins, Clelin Ferrell, and Austin Bryant all display flashes of future NFL brilliance, and one seems to outdo the other on any given play.
Against the Hokies, it was defensive end Austin Bryant who emerged as the week’s star defensive lineman. But Clemson’s ability to generate push with three rushers, pressure with four, and cause disruption was never more evident than in their win against the Hokies.
Virginia Tech, which has a capable offensive line that feature at least two NFL players, played admirably against the loaded Clemson front seven. But the Tigers were able to rattle freshman Josh Jackson at least a little bit on nearly every passing down.
Notice how quickly Josh Jackson steps back, abandons footwork and play progression, and gets the ball out as quick as possible to avoid the presumptive sack. He did so because of persistent pressure by the defensive line to start the game.
Clemson’s ability to constantly make the opposing quarterback live in fear of a collapsing pocket is something Deshaun Watson can relate to in his first battle with Alabama in January of 2016. And Clemson’s defense, currently fifth among Power Five schools in sacks per game (3.8), is only getting better.
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Turning rushed decisions into turnovers
While the score doesn’t reflect it, Virginia Tech was competitive throughout this game, and a handful of impressive, long drives spearheaded by Jackson certainly caught the young Clemson secondary off guard.
But Jackson, still just a true freshman whose maturity over this season has been a surprise among coaches in the ACC, wasn’t perfect against the Tigers defense. His second interception of the game stemmed entirely from rushed footwork, fear-based decision-making, and a heckuva play by Austin Bryant.
Clemson, the country’s No. 4 scoring defense, is loaded with future NFL standouts and a defensive line Saban could envy.
Swinney, with his athletic, dual-threat quarterback Kelly Bryant, seems like he's replicating Saban’s success with depth across the defense, an offensive line that can consistently win in the run game and a quarterback who can win with his arm and his feet — not unlike Saban’s current quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Only a handful of teams can even compete with the Crimson Tide this season. After Oklahoma, Georgia and maybe an emerging Penn State team, the rest of the country might face a similar beatdown Alabama provided to Ole Miss this past weekend.
But if and when Alabama finally gets to face off against Clemson, they’ll be looking at not only the team that beat them in the national championship a season ago. They'll see a team that plays like they do, has the talent that they do, and most importantly, wins like they do.