'In the Bleachers' with Michael Felder

A lot of people are high on the Clemson Tigers right now, and rightfully so. The defending national champions are battle tested with wins over Auburn at home and Louisville on the road, and if you just looked at the box score of the Boston College game you would think Clemson rolled up the Eagles. 

However, that was not the case. 

Clemson found themselves tied with Boston College at 7-7 in the fourth quarter, and as Lawton Swann put it, "the rear ends in Tiger Town were pretty tight."

© Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

Tavien Feaster carries the ball against Louisville.

Bleacher Report's Michael Felder is high on the Tigers as well, but he offered some thoughts on some of the issues that plagued Clemson in that particular game. 

"They should have been. I think what we saw is, for Clemson, this is a run first offense. The defense you know you can count on, the defense is going to play for you every single weekend. You don't always know what you're going to get out of the passing game," said Felder. "They're learning that if we need something big, we need to run the football, whether it's Kelly Bryant or Travis Etienne, they know they have to run the football to make that big play happen as they still try to work over the course of the game to stretch the field."

Felder then offered some thoughts on Etienne, the explosive freshman running back from Louisiana, who has burst onto the scene over the past couple of weeks. 

"Honestly, I thought Tavien Feaster was going to be this guy. I thought Feaster was going to be the homerun hitter, give me the ball and I'm going 95 yards for the touchdown. We're getting that from Etienne, and Feaster is proving to be an every down back. We saw him run over a couple guys."

After talking a little about the upcoming game against Virginia Tech and the future schedule for the Tigers, Felder was asked for his top four teams, and the answer he gave was a little unexpected. 

"I gotta go Clemson number one, I love what Clemson's done," he said. Not a big surprise, as a lot of analysts have placed Clemson at number one lately. But the rest of the top four is where it got interesting.

 "Number two for me is probably going to be Oklahoma. I know they almost pooped the bed against Baylor, but I think that has a lot more to do with them believing their own press clippings... they didn't bring their max effort to the Baylor game. Baker Mayfield only threw the ball 19 times, so this is the team that to me is in the number two slot. Number three, I guess I would put Alabama..."

Felder stopped in his tracks right there, however. 

"You know what? I wouldn't put Alabama. They haven't done anything that's impressed me. So I'm going Penn State at three and Alabama at four. Penn State, to me, the way they rose up against an Iowa team...Iowa is not special. They're not unique. They are an A-B-C football team, but they know the alphabet better than almost anyone in the sport...They do the specific things it takes to get the job done. Penn State, with the chips down, found a way to get a win."

Listen to the entire interview: