MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Coming into the Capital One Orange Bowl few people outside of the Clemson locker room thought the top-ranked Tigers could slow No. 4 Oklahoma’s offense down. After all, the Sooners were ranked second in the country in scoring offense and sixth in total offense.

In the previous seven games, Oklahoma outscored its opponents by an average score of 52-20.

But Clemson’s defense was not like anyone of those opponents. The Tigers not only slowed Oklahoma’s offense down, they shut it down. The Sooners totaled just 378 total yards and averaged just 5.0 yards per play as Clemson rolled to a 37-17 victory on Thursday to advance to the National Championship Game on Jan. 11 in Glendale, Ariz.

The Tigers (14-0) will play No. 2 Alabama at 8:30 p.m.

Before the Orange Bowl, the Sooners were averaging over 7.0 yards per play, the highest average in the FBS. What did Clemson do to make Oklahoma look so mediocre?

“We were Clemson,” safety Jayron Kearse said afterwards. “We weren’t Texas. We weren’t West Virginia. That’s what we did differently. We were Clemson.”

Leading up to the national semifinal game, players on Oklahoma’s offense talked about how last year’s 40-6 victory by Clemson in the Russell Athletic Bowl was more or less a fluke. Running back Samaje Perine even indicated the Sooners did not want to be there and that’s why Clemson beat them so bad. He went onto say they were going to expose Clemson’s defense, especially in the running game.

However, the only ones that got exposed were Perine and the Sooners. The Tigers limited Oklahoma to 67 rushing yards on 33 carries. If you do the math, that’s a 2.0 yards per carry average. Perine was held to 58 yards on 15 carries. He had 33 of those yards on the Sooners’ opening drive, which he capped with a one-yard touchdown.

Perine didn’t even finish the game, as he went down with an ankle injury in the second half, nor did his backfield teammates Joe Mixon (head injury) and quarterback Baker Mayfield (head injury).

“We came in the second half, made those corrections from the miscues we had in the first half—the missed tackles, the miss fits and thinks like that—we got that together and we were able to go out there in the second half and keep them from doing anything,” Kearse said.

Clemson limited the Sooners to 121 yards in the second half and kept them off the scoreboard.

“It just shows what we can do as a defense and what we are capable of,” defensive tackle Christian Wilkins said. “The offense was doing a great job getting points and moving the ball, putting us in position to shut them down and everything like that.

“We had a bunch of guys step up.”

The Tigers stepped up and forced two interceptions in the second half to kill would-be scoring drives, and had a turnover-on-downs midway through the third quarter as well. Linebackers B.J. Goodson and Ben Boulware picked off the two passes, while reserve defensive end Austin Bryant and reserve linebacker Kendall Joseph combined to tackle Perine on a fourth-and-one play from the Clemson 30-yardline with 5:28 to play in the third.

“We stressed all week to make them a one-dimensional team. Once we stopped the run and made them one-dimensional it was on from there,” defensive end Kevin Dodd said. “We knew it would work in our favor because we have some pass rushers and a pretty salty back-seven.”

And more than anything, they are Clemson.