CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Mitch Hyatt was asked about Clelin Ferrell and Clemson’s vaunted defensive line while onstage in front of media at the ACC Football Kickoff on Thursday, Ferrell, who was sitting nearby, put his fingers in his ears.

That’s because the Clemson defensive end did not want to hear yet another person sing the praises of the Tigers’ D-line, which is considered the strength of a team that is expected to contend for the national title this season.

“It’s good publicity, but you get tired of hearing about how good you are, how good you can be,” Ferrell said. “It gets really annoying. But I understand it comes with the territory when you have a talented group of people and you’re at a big-time school that has a lot of expectations.

“So I’m not really mad at it, I’m just making it known that it’s a lot, you know what I mean. But I’m not too affected by it because I understand that at the end of the day you have to go out and perform.”

Ferrell, a redshirt junior, is coming off a breakout season in which he became just the third Clemson freshman or sophomore in history to earn first-team AP All-America honors (Sammy Watkins and Deshaun Watson). He started all 14 games in 2017, recording 63 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, 9.5 sacks and 12 quarterback pressures.

Like fellow Tiger All-American defensive linemen Austin Bryant and Christian Wilkins, Ferrell decided to bypass the NFL draft and return to Clemson for another season. The trio joins junior defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, a two-time All-ACC selection, as Clemson’s starting front four.

It’s obvious why Clemson’s daunting defensive line is being billed by pundits as the best in college football this year and perhaps the best that college football has ever seen.

Ferrell gets why the unit has garnered so much hype, he just doesn’t like it.

“That people annoint you,” he said when asked to expand on why the praise annoys him. “We haven’t even really played yet. They just assume that we’re the best front four ever. They just assume that we’re going to have a great year. But it’s kind of a discredit to yourself because people don’t really understand the work you put in to be great. They think it just happens.

“But it’s fine. I understand. People don’t know what they don’t know, so I can’t really be too mad.”

So, Ferrell is doing his best to block out the preseason acclaim from the media and others as Clemson prepares for what it hopes will be another ACC and national title run in 2018.

In other words, he isn’t taking “the cheese”.

“When I came in, Coach Hobby, my old defensive line coach, and Coach (Todd) Bates, too, they always talked to us about not taking ‘the cheese’,” Ferrell said. “Yesterday in the team meeting, Coach (Dabo) Swinney was getting on us, ‘I hate seeing them old magazines. I hate that. It’s all on paper.’

“But they’re right, though. I’m tired of seeing it, too. We’re ready to just go out there and play and perform because that’s what it’s all about. … But yeah, that’s basically it, not trying to listen to the outside noise because obviously I know we’re a talented group. But we’re more so about the action; we want to walk the walk rather than just talk it.”

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