The last time Clemson’s defense took the field, the Tigers allowed 49 points and 639 total yards in their 49-28 loss to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2021.
That performance has been on the collective mind of Brent Venables’ unit since that night, and ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit believes it’s why Clemson’s defense is more hungry than just about anybody to get back on the field at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night when the third-ranked Tigers battle the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs in Charlotte.
“Clemson has spent eighth months getting this better — communication, tackling,” Herbstreit said during ESPN’s College GameDay show Saturday morning. “There may not be, other than LSU, a team that’s chomping at the bit more to get back out on the field after a performance from 2020 than this Clemson defense.”
Herbstreit believes Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken will try to take a page out of Ohio State head coach Ryan Day’s playbook when it comes to how to attack Venables’ defense.
“What I’m looking at is it’s not just about Justin Fields and Trey Sermon and they’re very talented — it was the way Ryan Day did it,” Herbstreit said. “Now you’ve had all these other offensive coordinators have had a chance to try to study it and try to figure out. It’s changing formations, it’s not allowing them to get set, creating confusion with your tempo, going fast, going slow …
“Brent Venables, one of the best defensive lines in the game. A long history in his 11 years of being at Clemson, having dominating defenses. This is an outlier. The reason we bring it up is this is the last time we saw it, and you’ve got to think Todd Monken, Georgia’s offensive coordinator, he’s going to be looking at this trying to see how can we try to exploit this defense the same way?”
With the CFP semifinal showing against Ohio State in mind, Herbstreit expects Clemson’s defense to play like a mad unit when they go up against Georgia on Saturday night at Bank of America Stadium.
“Nine new starters on that defense a year ago,” Herbstreit said. “Everybody’s back this year. Off of that performance, the experience that they have, I think you’re going to see an angry defense take the field, a more experienced defense take the field. Georgia better be ready, because I think that will not be on display tonight for Clemson’s defense.”
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