COLLEGE FOOTBALL ZACH LENTZ

The 2019 Clemson football did what many people expected them to do before the start of the regular season - finish without a loss.

For head coach Dabo Swinney, the reason for this team’s success is 2-fold.

“Well, I just think, just like last year, we have great leadership,” Swinney said. “I mean, this is a defense that’s playing the most consistent football of any group we’ve had. They’re giving up 10 points a game. They’ve just been so consistent.”

“I just think we’re not giving up big plays,” he added. “Last year we were about 70th in plays of 20 yards or more. This year we’re 3rd or 4th in the country, plays of 20 yards or more. We just don’t give a lot of big plays up.”

But even though the saying that, “offense sells tickets, defense wins championships” may hold some water, the fact is that you still have to score points to win games.

The Tigers have done this at a historic rate.

“Offensively this is the most prolific offense we’ve had, scoring 45 a game. I mean, we’re rushing the ball for 250 something a game,” Swinney said. “The other big thing, this is the best turnover margin team I’ve had. We’re plus 11 in the turnover margin. We’re getting a lot of takeaways, we’re doing a good job of taking care of the ball. I think we’ve had 7 games in a row now we’ve won the margin, which is the 1st time since I’ve been a head coach to have that consistency.

“The flipside of it, we’re explosive. We’re playing very, very well up front. We’re protecting our quarterback at the best level of any team I’ve coached. So it’s been fun.”

The unique thing is this, even though this may be Swinney’s best team he has ever coached at Clemson, he is doing so with arguably his youngest team. A total of 80 freshmen and sophomores make up the 2019 squad.

Clemson will face Virginia for the ACC championship in Charlotte, N.C. at 7:30 pm Saturday. The game will air on ABC and can be heard on WCOS (1400 AM) or on the TuneIN Radio phone app.