re: Clemson will be Bama's toughest Test

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Does anyone know how much better Clemson's front seven on defense is this year than last? They haven't looked very special this year and the only game I really paid attention to them last year was the Georgia game. Gurley averaged 13.2 yards per carry and Chubb averaged 17.5. I would imagine Clemson will have to sell out a little to stop Henry and Drake and Clemson's secondary isn't good enough to handle Ridley and Stewart one on one. Clemson will score but I doubt they'll score enough to beat Bama.

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They've been up and down.

On the negative side, they gave up over 150 rushing 5 times. In the case of App State, the large rushing total was still much less that what the Mountaineers averaged in other games. Here are those games, what Clemson allowed, and what the team averaged in their other games.

App State 202 (277)
Boston College 160 (164)
FSU 197 (165). Dalvin Cook got 192 in this game.
Syracuse 242 (156)
South Carolina 181 (152)

On the positive side, they held Notre Dame, Oklahoma, and North Carolina each to roughly 100 yards under their season average and completely shut down everyone else.