I get a lot of questions about what’s the difference in Clemson’s football team this year as opposed to years past. As I think about the answer the one thing that comes to mind has been the Tigers ability to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the football.

It’s no surprise Clemson’s defensive line has been dominate. Defensive tackles coach Dan Brooks and defensive ends coach Marion Hobby are two of the best at what they do. Look at the amount of former players they have sent to the NFL since they have been at Clemson.

This year, defensive end Shaq Lawson became a consensus First-Team All-American. Defensive tackle Carlos Watkins is a First-Team All-ACC tackle. Christian Wilkins earned Freshman All-American honors, while defensive end Kevin Dodd has emerged as a great compliment to Lawson to help bookend the defensive front.

The Tigers once again led the ACC and rank sixth nationally in sacks with 38. They are second in the ACC and nationally in tackles for loss with 108. But Clemson has been doing that on the defensive front for a while now, or at least since Brent Venables took over as defensive coordinator.

You figured, as well as the defensive line has been for so long, it was eventually going to rub off on the offensive line. It finally has.

When he started fall camp, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said he was not concerned about the offensive line, though at the time it was replacing four of the five starters from a squad that was average at best the year before.

Even with a true freshman in Mitch Hyatt starting at left tackle—the most important of the five positions—and another true freshman in Jake Fruhmorgen backing up Joe Gore at right tackle, Swinney stayed true to what he said.

When senior center Ryan Norton injured his knee against App State in the second game of the season and would miss the majority of the year because it would continue to flare up, Swinney did not back down from his statement. Jay Guillermo, a redshirt junior, filled in magnificently for Norton. So much so he became an All-ACC center along the way.

Clemson’s offensive line has had its best season in almost a decade. The Tigers averaged 222.2 yards per game, the highest yards per game average by a Clemson offense since Woodrow Dantzler’s led Tigers averaged 224.0 yards per game in 2000.

In fact, this season marked just the third time since the end of the 1995 that Clemson averaged 200 or more yards per game on the ground. The 2006 team averaged 217.8 yards per game with James Davis and C.J. Spiller in the backfield.

Clemson is averaging 5.0 yards per carry. Do you know how rare that is at Clemson? Let’s just say no Danny Ford coached team, which were known for their power running game, averaged 5.0 yards per carry in a season. This year marks just the fourth time since statistics started being compiled in 1938 that a Clemson team averaged 5.0 or more yards per carry. The other three years came in 1941 (5.1), 1950 (5.3) and 2006 (5.7).

The accolades keep piling up from there. The offensive line allowed just 14 sacks this season, the fewest amount of sacks allowed since 1989. It is tied for the sixth lowest total since sacks started to be recorded in 1981.

By the way, the Clemson offensive line has not been charged with a sack in five straight games.

Football is a simple game. It doesn’t matter if you spread things out with four or five wide receiver sets. It doesn’t matter if you have a bruising tailback or a scat back. It doesn’t matter of you have the best quarterback in the country.

The game of football comes down to this. If you can control the line of scrimmage, you will win the majority of the time. If you can dominate the line of scrimmage like Clemson did against Louisville, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and North Carolina, you will win all the time.

Why is this Clemson team different than those of the past? It is dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.