Ohio State football: First look at Clemson, the Buckeyes’ opponent in College Football Playoff semifinals

Here are six things for Ohio State fans to know about the Tigers:

1. The 10-1 Tigers are coming off their best game of the season.

“Oh yeah, no question,” coach Dabo Swinney said of Clemson’s 34-10 win over Notre Dame in the ACC Championship game. “Definitely our best game, our most complete game. All three phases really complement each other. We had a big kick return, made a couple of field goals. Kickoff coverage was very good. We punted the ball inside the 20 three times, and then offensively we had great balance. Was able to really run the ball efficiently like we wanted to. And then defensively we held up against the run much better. Then that led to great third-down production on both sides, so I was really proud of our team. There’s still plenty to do. We were in there watching the film just a little while ago. Still have plenty of mistakes. We turned the ball over one time.”

Trevor Lawrence threw for 322 yards, ran for 90 and accounted for three touchdowns while Travis Etienne ran for 124 yards and a touchdown and Amari Rodgers had 121 yards receiving and a touchdown.

Clemson held Notre Dame to 44 yards rushing and sacked quarterback Ian Book six times.

“Plenty of things that we can do to improve, but really proud of our team and definitely played our best game,” Swinney said. “But we’re at our best right now. This is the healthiest we’ve been by far. We still don’t have a lot of people.”

2. The talent should be about even.

Anyone who follows college football likely knows the Buckeyes and Tigers are among the most physically gifted teams in the country.

The 247Sports Talent Composite backs that up as Ohio State ranks No. 3 in the country and Clemson is fourth.

Ohio State’s roster has 14 players who were five-star recruits and another 52 who were four-stars.

Clemson has 11 five-stars and 35 four-stars.

3. Lawrence, Etienne and Rodgers headline the offense that ranks fourth in the country in scoring.

Lawrence, who led Clemson to the national championship game in each of his first two seasons, entered the season with sky-high expectations after helping lead the effort to make sure a season was played, and he put up somewhat pedestrian numbers for him.

The Georgia native, who missed two games after testing positive for COVID-19 midway through the season, completed 198 of 286 passers for 2,753 yards with 22 touchdown passes and four interceptions in nine games. He added 211 yards on the ground and seven more touchdowns.

Etienne, who surprised many when he decided not to enter the NFL Draft early last winter, ran for 924 yards and scored 13 touchdowns on the ground while adding 44 catches for 524 yards and two more touchdowns.

Rodgers caught 69 passes for 966 yards and seven touchdowns while senior Cornell Powell became the team’s No. 2 receiver with the exit of current Bengals standout Tee Higgins. Powell caught 45 passes for 743 yards and five touchdowns in the regular season.

4. The Clemson defense is strong again despite losing six starters from last year.

The Tigers rank in the national top 11 in points allowed and total yards.

What else is new in the ninth season under coordinator Brent Venables?

Linebacker Baylon Spector leads the Tigers with 62 tackles while safety Nolan Turner has 52.

Turner, who made the game-sealing interception against Ohio State last season, will miss the first half of the Sugar Bowl after being called for targeting in Clemson’s win against Notre Dame on Saturday.

Returning players who started on defense for the Tigers in the last game against Ohio State are cornerback Deion Kendrick, defensive linemen Nylee Pinckney, Xavier Thomas and Tyler Davis and linebacker James Skalski.

5. Clemson is fairly young.

The Tigers return 10 starters from last year’s Fiesta Bowl, and the depth chart is full of freshmen and sophomores.

They have one senior and two sophomores on the offensive line, which returns only Fairfield High School grad Jackson Carman from last year’s starting lineup. The junior is joined in the starting lineup by classmate Matt Bockhorst, a guard from Cincinnati who is the only other Ohioan on the Clemson roster.

The Tigers started two sophomores and two freshmen on the defensive line against Notre Dame, and sophomore Mike Jones joins seniors Skalski and Spector at linebacker while sophomores have stepped into the starting lineup in the secondary as well.

Overall, the roster includes 78 players classified as freshmen or sophomores.

6. Swinney ranked Ohio State No. 11 in the nation to end the season.

The publication of the coach’s ballot in the USA Today coaches poll caused a stir online Monday morning as it was revealed Swinney had Notre Dame third, Texas A&M fourth, Florida fifth and Georgia sixth.

The 6-0 Buckeyes were also behind No. 7 Cincinnati, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Iowa State and No. 10 Coastal Carolina.

Those teams all started the season earlier than Ohio State, who had to wait until late October because of the Big Ten’s decision to postpone the start of the season amid concerns about COVID-19.

“I think the games matter,” Swinney said Sunday on a pregame video conference when asked about whether or not Ohio State playing fewer games than the Tigers was an advantage (but not about his ballot, which had not become public yet). “The mental and physical toll of a season — there’s nobody out there that would say that somebody who’s played 11 games versus somebody who’s played six is better physically or something like that because it’s a long season.”