FSU football: Ranking top 5 defenses Noles will face in 2020
By Kelvin Hunt
Clemson
Come on, if you’re a real football fan you knew the Tigers were going to be one of the five teams on the list. That’s even with them losing a ton of talent to the NFL.
They’re at the point where they are reloading with talent similar to FSU football at its peak.
The reigning ACC champions finished last season with the No. 4 defense according to S&P stats.
They were highly-ranked in every major category for S&P and only allowed 13.5 ppg with opponents converting on third down just 31 percent of the time.
They allowed 3.25 yards and only allowed 4.46 ypp on the season. However, all of those metrics were slight regressions from the previous season, where they won the national championship.
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Did I mention they could get after the quarterback too? They were No. 6 in the country with 47 sacks and were No. 2 in the nation with 119 tackles for loss.
Clemson loses quite a bit from last season. The saving grace for them is playing time the reserves got in all the blowouts last season.
It’s not like they are returning totally inexperienced players, and they still have a ton of talent returning while playing for one of the best defensive coordinators in the game in Brent Venables.