Clemson Football: Scouting FAU's Line of Scrimmage with Will Shipley and Peter Woods

The star running back and freshman defensive lineman share their thoughts on the FAU offensive and defensive lines

For a Clemson team that has struggled at times to create big plays and finishing drives, winning the battle at the line of scrimmage becomes all the more important.

For the offense, if Cade Klubnik isn't able to connect with Antonio Williams and his other big targets on Saturday, the running game is going to have to carry the load once again. Defensively, this is a Florida Atlantic team that hasn't had a ton of success running the ball thus far, and if the Tigers want to keep the time of possession battle in their favor and give the offense as many swings at sustained drives as it can get, then stopping the run has to be paramount in its game plan.

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Will Shipley and Peter Woods both spoke to reporters earlier this week and shared an observation for the Owls' line on both sides of the ball: they're big.

Shipley, when asked about playing FAU, said, "Really big interior d-lineman." He did seem confident in the Tigers' ability to handle that size however, "I don't think that will cause any problems. Huge shoutout to our o-line. They have absolutely killed it the past two weeks. They've done their job. We've had a lot of different guys in there but yeah I think if we can control that interior d-line, we've got great athletes on the back end. So just staying disciplined to our game and not getting away from that."

Woods likewise seemed up for the challenge as he continues to grow more confident as his freshman year moves forward. "Oh you know, they're big", he said with a shrug. "You know what I'm saying they're big and I like playing big offensive linemen personally because I'm not the tallest guy. But we're gonna watch some more film and see what they have skill-wise but being big is part of the game so it doesn't really scare us but we're gonna take it."

Regardless of the skill level of FAU, it will probably pay dividends down the line to compete against bigger bodies which will be closer in size to some of the strong teams they'll face in conference play the rest of the way. Should be a fun battle in the trenches to watch.