Clemson fan here
we have some work to do on special teams, mainly kick off coverage and punt teams. special teams killed us against NCST, they had positive field 5 of their 7 scoring drives. I appreciate the in the thread.
i feel like we beat a very talented ND team, now I know it was only a 2 point win, but we didn't even try to pass on them in the second half. I feel like their secondary is their weakness, I feel if we played again we would win by more than 7(no rain please). I thought the rain helped them out, we played aggressive early and it helped. that being said, I think they are a top 4 team if they beat Stanford.
i personally would rather play, LSU, Bama, UF, Ohio St or ND than Stanford, Baylor or TCU. I feel like we match up a lot better against a down field running team. I look at Stanford as a more athletic BC team and we be hard to play discipline football. They will catch our Safties and LBs with their eyes in the backfield.
We could stop LSU and Bama in the running back and force them to beat Tank and Mac at corner. Baylor scares me because they will expose our 2 deep at LB. they will spread us out and force our LBs to have to cover a RB in the passing game in space.
it can be a bias opinion, I do think we are a top 4 team but we do have flaws, kickoff coverage, punt team and 2 deep at LB.