Clemson football: Tigers have plenty of things to prove

Will this defensive line be “special” as advertised? Or just consistent because they are deep?

To be honest, there are several aspects of Clemson’s 2022 where Tiger Nation believes, but very few outsiders believe. The most notable exception is the defensive line. There are many in the country who believe Clemson‘s line will be among the best, if not the best period, in 2022. Even then, Tiger fans have a deeper faith in the squad led by Nick Eason and Lemanski Hall. Many already want to put them on the same level as The Power Rangers.

There are several good players on the line. There are two players, Myles Murphy and Brian Bresee, that many people have ranked very high for next year’s NFL draft class.

The reality is that Murphy is coming off a season where most analysts don’t think he performed his best. The reality is that Bresee had a significant injury last season and while he will play, and most likely start, most observers think it could be midseason before he is back to full speed.

The next names that get mentioned on the line are usually Tyler Davis, Xavier Thomas & KJ Henry. They are all good college players, but they have something else in common too: they all chose to return to Clemson even though they had opportunities to go to the NFL. Each player likely has their own personal reasons, but I’ve seen many experts & analysts allude to all three of them wanting to improve their draft stock this season. You can spin that a certain way: the NFL said “you are all good, but we’re not convinced you’re great”.

That may sound harsh, but it is fair. You can’t say this is the ‘money year’ for those young men without acknowledging they have something yet to prove.

As Clemson fans, we’ve seen Ruke Orhorhoro, Justin Mascoll, Tre Williams and the others. When we think of them as the depth on the line, we get excited, but what if they were the starters? Would we still be as excited?

This all means one thing: our defensive line is deep with good players, but will any of them step up and individually prove themselves to be special?

We know this line is deep enough that they can rotate players and keep them fresh, while most opposing offensive lines don’t have that luxury. It’s very reasonable to expect consistency and endurance from this line.

To be the best line in the country, they will need to be more than resilient. They will need to be disruptive. That will mean someone, probably multiple someones, will need to step up and be special.

Can they? Yes. Will they? We’ll see.