Venables Looking for Clemson Defense's Identity

Despite a promising start to the season, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables says there's still much to learn about his unit and a lot will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Identity, chemistry, scheme and development are core values of a Brent Venables defense. 

However, those don't come baked into a team and produce a finished product right out of the gate. While the Clemson defensive coordinator is renowned for retooling and rebuilding no matter how many talented players he loses to the NFL and graduation, it's always a process to get his unit to play at the desired level. 

Through two contests this season, the defense for No. 1 Clemson has certainly looked the part, allowing 246 yards and 6.5 points per game, but Venables understands how far these young Tigers have to go. 

"We're not anywhere close to where I believe that we will be by the end of the year," Venables said. "We've got a lot of growth to do, a lot of improvement fundamentally, scheme, still working on our chemistry.

"That's developed over the season. What our identity is, I don't know what that is yet."

It might be a little jarring to hear a man who's produced six consecutive defenses that have ranked in the top-10 nationally say that he's searching for the identity of this side of the ball. But identity isn't just about being good at something. It's fully knowing your strengths and weaknesses and which players you can trust. 

In 2017 and 2018, Clemson's "Power Rangers" along the defensive front were the identity. Christian Wilkins, Clelin Ferrell, Austin Bryant and Dexter Lawrence created so much havoc and made it nearly impossible to run the ball against them that it opened up all kinds of creativity for Venables to game-plan. 

Last year, linebacker Isaiah Simmons and his versatility replaced that strong defensive front and allowed Clemson to use its experience in the secondary to overpower offenses. 

So far this year, despite the youth at the defensive line spot, it looks like an area that could turn into the team's identity once again.  

"We've improved up front," Venables said when asked what has surprised him about this defense in the first two weeks. "Even though we've lost some guys, have some guys out, I've seen noticeably a number of players that have improved, gotten better from where we were in the spring. It's a long season, you got a lot of challenges ahead, but that's been great."

Freshmen Myles Murphy, Bryan Bresee and DeMonte Capehart have proven to be ready for this level of play and have helped ease the burden of not having starters Justin Foster, Xavier Thomas and Tyler Davis available for every snap. 

"I think we've got some young guys that have great futures and some, just in regards to some of the depth, a bunch of babies out there running around, just now for the first time getting their ears wet," Venables said. "There are gonna be good days and bad days but really excited about some of our young players across the board up front and in the back end."

One area he hasn't had to worry about is the senior leadership. Venables said linebacker James Skalski and safety Nolan Turner are "steady" and have played at a "different kind of level of confidence and consistency that you want all your players to play with."

Those two will be instrumental in helping the Tiger defense find its identity and develop their young talent. So will the schedule, which goes from two games against Wake Forest and The Citadel to Virginia on Saturday at 8 p.m. followed by a 7:30 showdown with No. 8 Miami on Oct. 10. 

The Cavaliers put up 38 points on a decent Duke defense last week while the Hurricanes scored a combined 99 points in their games against Louisville and Florida State. After that, 

"We're fixing to get really challenged here moving forward in the meat of our schedule," Venables said. "So we're going to find out a lot about our team over the next month or so, but a lot to look forward to, though, for sure." 

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