Venables: 'We are Re-establishing Ourselves'

After a year in which the Tigers were forced to go to play three-down linemen for a vast majority of the season — in part, to hide the lack of size, strength and athleticism — Venables wants his new group of linemen to have the same level of intensity and leadership as Tiger greats.

Redshirt sophomore KJ Henry was a 5-Star recruit out of North Carolina, and just another piece of the puzzle to the already great defensive line of the Clemson Tigers

A physical beast at 6-4 250lbs, Henry is expected to be the next great Clemson defensive linemen, but becoming the best doesn’t come easy. 

“He's putting on, again, just leaned up even more, just put on the right kind of size and strength, and the experience for him was great.” Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said.

 However Venables is not only focusing making Henry great or on the rebuilding a dominant front four, he is tasked with making sure everyone on the field is capable of making necessary plays.

“We spent a lot of time in the month that we had to really look at the things that we didn't do well as a defense. Even when we might've made the play, how can we make it better? There's so much of that because if you looked at just the end result, we played really good defense, but there's so much that we can be better at I can't say that enough with our footwork and our pad level and our eyes and just striking, knocking people back, and really our challenge to our defense as a whole.”

“Of course we got a lot of work to do with our Back Seven, I mean, a lot, and then up front re-establishing ourselves from a defensive line standpoint.”

Players like Christian Wilkins, Clellin Ferrell, Vic Beasley, Grady Jarrett and Shaq Lawson have been able to lead the defense to big time plays, especially in crucial moments. 

After a year in which the Tigers were forced to go to play three-down linemen for a vast majority of the season — in part, to hide the lack of size, strength and athleticism — Venables wants his new group of linemen to have the same level of intensity and leadership as those former Tiger greats.

“We need to be able to overwhelm people and we need to be able to knock people back, and when the game's on the line, that's a group we need to hang our hat on," Venables said. "The challenge has been made and a lot of work to do to get to that point where you feel like we can, again, go overwhelm people. It starts with attitude and its fundamentals and it's being physical.”