By Will Vandervort.

The week following Clemson’s 50-35 win over North Carolina, Dabo Swinney made practice very difficult for his defense.

He was not happy to see what he thought was an elite level defense allowing the Tar Heels to score 28 second half points, while amassing 328 yards of offense. Most of those yards came on three plays and Swinney told his defensive unit to “Get out of the charity business” every time he saw a busted play or big chunk play occur in practice.

“Coach Swinney loves to say that,” defensive tackle Jarrett said on Tuesday.

Since the UNC game, the Tigers are not even willing to concede a blade of grass to an opposing team. Clemson yielded one less point to North Carolina than it did in the entire month of October. NC State, Louisville, Boston College and Syracuse combined to score 36 points, with NC State and Syracuse were held to 152 and 170 yards respectively. They combined to score just six points.

No team got more than 264 yards and 17 points in the last four games.

“I rather win games 16-6 than 50-35 any day,” Swinney said. “You feel a whole lot better knowing your defense can go out there and shut people down.”

Currently, Clemson ranks third nationally in total defense behind Louisville and Stanford at 268.6 yards a game. Since the Tar Heels, opponents have failed to reach their season average on offense in every game and UNC is the only opponent since the Georgia game in Week 1 to reach or surpass their season average.

“It is about cutting out the big plays because we played North Carolina really well in the first half and then they come out and put up 28 points in the second half. It is inexcusable,” Jarrett said. “There was not anything new that we had not seen, guys just kind of relaxed.

“Staying intense the whole game has been a very big improvement for our defense. That’s the main focus now. We want to play a full game and we have been doing it as of late and it has been working out for us.”

One reason they been able to do it is because no one can run the ball on Clemson. Since the Georgia game, opponents are averaging just 69.0 yards per game on the ground and five times in the seven games they have failed to reach the century mark.

The Tigers (6-2, 5-1 ACC) held Florida State to 13 yards rushing and stopped a Boston College team that is averaging 277 yards a game on the ground to 120. Clemson leads the ACC in sacks and ranks third nationally with 30. It leads the nation in tackles for loss with 78.

The Tigers also lead the country in third down conversion defense at 22.95 percent.

It goes without saying that Clemson is playing at an elite level on defense and it makes a strong case that it has the best defense in the country.

“That is definitely a goal of ours,” Jarrett said. “But the motivation is to try to improve as a whole as a whole entire unit on defense.”

And that motivation is what seems to make this defense so special.

“We have good chemistry. We are in a good rhythm right now,” Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “We have great leadership and it looks as though our guys are enjoying themselves and having fun at the same time while playing with great intensity and great focus and displaying great toughness along the way.

“Our fans should be proud of our players, all of our players.”