TAMPA, Fla. — When you have to practice against Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence, Carlos Watkins, Scott Pagano and Clelin Ferrell every day, it makes life just a little bit easier when facing Jonathan Allen and the Alabama defensive front.

“We won’t be as shell shocked when we step on the field on Monday,” Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson said.

Led by Watkins and his record 10.5 sacks from his defensive tackle position, Clemson’s defensive front is every bit as good as Alabama’s. Clemson ranks third in the nation in sacks with 49, Alabama is second with 50. Clemson is second in the nation in tackles for loss with 123, while ‘Bama is sixth 112.

“They do a lot of similar things, but they do a lot of different things, they just disrupt the offense,” Watson said about the Alabama defensive front. “We are going to try to figure out their tendencies so we will be able to execute whenever they do bring pressure.”

Watson says guys like Allen, Da’Ron Payne, Dalvin Tomlinson and Tim Williams are very knowledgeable of the game and put in the work.

“They just win their match-ups,” he said.

They win their matchups a lot, which is why Alabama leads the nation in total defense (244.0), rushing defense (62.0) and scoring defense (11.4 points).

“I think they’re very good and we’ve prepared and we’ve prepared the defense, so we’ll just turn our eyes to ourselves and keep moving forward and worry about Clemson,” Watson said.

The Tigers (13-1) come into Monday’s National Championship Game playing with a lot of confidence on the offensive side of the ball, especially after last week’s 31-0 Fiesta Bowl victory over Ohio State. Playing against one of the best defenses in the country at the time, the Tigers tallied 470 total yards, including three rushing touchdowns.

But Alabama (14-0) is a different beast.

“It’s about understanding my keys and putting us in the right place and in position to be successful whenever they call their plays, and try to be successful,” Watson said.

Last year, Clemson was very successful against the Crimson Tide defense. They totaled 540 yards of offense, and Watson himself totaled 478 yards in the 45-40 loss.

“Last year is last year. You can’t go based off last year. They have maybe – I want to say seven new starters, eight new starters on this defense, and everyone else is in the NFL. So they are a totally different defense, so you cannot go based off this previous year. You can’t live on last year’s success. You’ve got to keep moving forward and see what’s going on this year.”