In Sports Illustrated’s annual College Football Preview Magazine, which hit newsstands last week, an anonymous opposing coach gave his take on the Clemson Tigers.

It was the standard stuff. He talked about how to defend Deshaun Watson and all of the Tigers’ game-breaking weapons and whatnot, and then he took a shot at Clemson’s offensive line and tight end Jordan Leggett.

“Jordan Leggett won’t block anybody, but he can catch,” the anonymous coach said. “The offensive line is not going to knock anybody off the ball.”

That quote interested me a lot. So the “anonymous” coach said Clemson can’t knock anyone off the ball.

I was a little stunned to read that. Personally, I thought, and take it from someone who saw every Clemson game last year, I didn’t think there was even one game in which Clemson lost the battle of the lines of scrimmage.

If the Tigers did not push anyone off the ball, like this “anonymous” coach says, then why did Clemson rush for 200 or more yards 11 times last year? Why on three of those occasions to Clemson rush for 300 or more yards, and one of those went for 416 yards?

Ask Oklahoma if Clemson’s offensive line was not knocking them off the ball. The Sooners gave up a season-high 312 rushing yards to the Tigers.

While you are at it, ask Alabama.

The Crimson Tide led the nation in run defense last year, allowing just 75.7 yards per game. They were said to have had the best defensive front in the history of college football. But against Clemson, the Tigers rushed for 145 yards in the national championship game, a season-high for rushing yards allowed by the ‘Bama defense. Not bad for an offensive line that cannot push people off the ball.

Ask Notre Dame’s front seven last year, considered one of the best in the game about Clemson’s offensive line. In a driving rain storm, Clemson plowed through the Irish for 212 yards while building a 21-3 lead.

“Notre Dame,” the experts said, “is the better team in the trenches” prior to the game.

Obviously they were wrong. The Irish, a pro-style running game built to run the football, rushed for just 111 yards that night in Death Valley.

Ask Florida State if Clemson’s OL can push people off the ball or not. In the fourth quarter, when the game and with an ACC Atlantic Division title at stake, the Tigers wore down the Seminoles’ talented defensive front.

Clemson outgained the Seminoles 215 to 197 and that was with FSU getting runs of 75 and 40 yards from Dalvin Cook on the first two series of the game.

Oklahoma knows what Florida State felt like. The Tigers’ big boys up front wore them down, too, in the second half as Clemson ran Wayne Gallman on the same play over and over and over again and they could not stop it.

Now, you tell me. Does that sound like an offensive line that can’t knock anyone off the ball? I guess that’s why that coach was “anonymous.” He obviously did not know what he was talking about.