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Yesterday we put our focus on the Tale of the Tape on the Ohio State offense against the Clemson defense and today we are going to turn the tables and add special teams to the mix as well as we get closer to the Fiesta Bowl.

Clemson is at the top/near the top on most of the major statistical categories and is only 2.2 points per game behind the Buckeyes in terms of scoring offense. Then again, if you listened to a lot of the national talking heads, you would have thought that Clemson was a good touchdown or more ahead of Ohio State, but that is just not the case.

Clemson running roughshod over the rest of the ACC would obviously hang everyone that the Tigers played with one bad number, but if the league is worth its salt, there should be some good games in there to help dilute that bad number, right? Wrong.

The Tigers have played exactly one team with a top-50 scoring defense. Ohio State on the other hand played games against teams nine times that were in that top-50 (granted two of those were against the same team).

RELATED: Tale of the Tape - Part One

Who was that lone game for the Tigers against a team in the top-50? It was not even an ACC team, it was Texas A&M out of the SEC where the nation's No. 37 scoring defense held the Tigers to just 24 points. But that was also before Clemson started to figure things out, and while we do know that September football is different than November or December football, it is still petty telling.

How many games did Ohio State play against teams in the top-37 nationally in scoring defense? 37.

How did Ohio State fare in those games? Beyond the obvious of 7-0, the Buckeyes also scored an average of 39.6 points per game against those foes, only about nine points less than the full-season scoring average, showing that Ohio State's number was not inflated against the likes of Maryland, Rutgers and Miami (Ohio).

This is not to take anything away from the talented skill players that Clemson has, they have some great players starting with quarterback Trevor Lawrence and going through the running back and receiver rooms.

The point here is that without any sort of uniform scheduling, it is hard to just look at numbers across the board and say that one team's 46.5 is the same as another team's 48.7.

We will get into this more as we continue with our Tale of the Tape.

The Buckeyes are going to need everyone healthy for this task so that means Shaun Wade and Damon Arnette are going to need to be as close to 100-percent as possible. That does not mean we are expecting Arnette's cast to suddenly come off but both players have been dinged up as the season has gone along. How much of a chip will be on the shoulder of Jeff Okudah as he did not win the Thorpe Award? He has been vindicated by being named first-team on many of the All-America teams but it is our belief that the voters got it wrong when it came down to the Thorpe. For everything that the Big Ten is, it was not a great passing league when you just look at the numbers. Indiana led the way when it came to passing yards and FAU was a close No. 2 but outside of that, the next best passing team was Michigan at No. 50 and that was a Michigan team that only discovered that it could throw the ball in the second half of the Penn State game and beyond that. When you look at efficiency however, Wisconsin edges out Indiana but we know that Jack Coan was not exactly lighting the world on fire much of the year. The point being, while Clemson has not faced an offense like the Buckeyes, Ohio State has not faced a passing game like Clemsons, and with that being said, Clemson is still only No. 20 in passing offense but No. 11 in pass efficiency offense, which often is a better measure and eliminates a lot of the throwing it between the 20s yardage and really drills down on more important numbers.

Normally we start with the numbers and then work into the personnel but we will make an exception here with Trevor Lawrence, Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross all taking first billing rights. Lawrence's 2019 numbers are up with him sitting at 34 touchdowns and a 68.8-percent completion rate. His yardage is just a little behind as a total but he also had 15 games last season and just has 13 to date, so that 108 yards should be wiped out in this game, regardless of what the outcome is. Lawrence also saw his interceptions go up from four to eight, but he has not thrown a pick in his last six games. Higgins and Ross each check in at 6-foot-4 with Higgins a little 'thicker' than Ross. The two have combined for 21 touchdowns and Higgins leads in yardage with 1,082 while Ross has three more receptions at 55 to 52 and has 742 yards of his own. There are still some other receiving yards and scores out there but nobody else has more than 400 yards receiving and Amari Rodgers is No. 3 in receiving scores with four. Ohio State fans are quick to look for a prolific tight end and that is not the case from the numbers with JC Chalk sitting at 13 receptions for 60 yards and no scores. Now, the question is, can anyone defend the pass on Clemson's schedule? That is unknown but the stats don't bode well to anyone who is going to defend the Tigers for being tested. Charlotte leads all of the FBS teams that Clemson has played in pass defense at No. 23 nationally while Texas A&M is No. 27 in pass efficiency defense. Outside of that? A lot of teams in the bottom half to the bottom third of college football in both categories. Now, we already established that the ACC did not have any great quarterbacks outside of Lawrence this year and if teams are giving up on average 241.5 yards per game (on the FBS level) per game via the throw on the Clemson schedule, and none of these quarterbacks are overly prolific (yes, Sam Howell from UNC and Bryce Perkins of UVA were both top-20 in passing but neither were exactly accurate in terms of completion percentage or interceptions thrown) then it is a pretty big indictment of the league (ACC) on the whole and Clemson's schedule (which they can only control so much of).