Swinney confident star DE Lawson (knee) will play vs Alabama

The Tigers’ unit is a group that early on didn’t look like it could anchor a national championship run.

Because the Clemson spring semester begins on Wednesday, the team will be limited to 20 practice/meeting hours leading up to Monday’s National Championship Game against Alabama. Top-ranked Clemson is sixth.

“It was just really during summer workouts, all the stuff they did”, Watson said. The Tigers, however, believe they can slow down the Crimson Tide so Watson and Gallman can make the plays they’ve made all season.

And that’s exactly what the Tide, who use an 11-player rotation led by All-America tackle A’Shawn Robinson, did.

It’s no secret that Alabama has had some of the deepest and most disruptive defensive lines in college football recently, and 2015 may be the best of them all. “You know, (he) really is a very good rhythm passer, as well as a guy who can sustain plays and extend plays because of his athleticism and ability to scramble”. Clemson is ranked sixth in the country in total defense, and the defensive line is a big reason why.

“We’ve built this team in the trenches, and most great teams, that’s where it starts”.

Clemson’s 37-17 Orange Bowl win over Oklahoma’s Sooners was an exciting game for football fans, far more exciting than the 38-0 pounding Alabama gave Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl.

For the season, Shaq Lawson has totaled 54 tackles and 10.5 sacks as he prepares for his last game ever as a Clemson Tiger before he heads to the NFL Draft.

Lawson was set to practice today, Swinney said, and has already gone through workouts with the team.

“There was a lot of things that we didn’t execute on where one player saved us because two other players didn’t execute on that play”, Tide defensive end Jonathan Allen said. “You’ve got to be able to control the line of scrimmage and have some type of running game and stopping the run, and certainly that’s been what Alabama has been for a long time”. We’ve tried to do that here. We’ve seen that growth and maturity all year long. “I think the prognosis is good at this point”.

Being so effective on both sides of the ball is why those teams will meet for the championship in Glendale, Ariz. The problem is that the Clemson Tigers aren’t a team that Alabama is used to seeing, so it may be hard to muster up those usual feelings of animosity. Very, very good offensive team, great defensive team, play well on special teams, very well-coached.