CLEMSON -- To gain a full appreciation for where Clemson is right now -- 5-0 and its Top 5 bona-fides strengthened by the past two Saturdays -- it is almost imperative that we revisit where the Tigers were this time last year.

For much of this past offseason, it was too soon for Clemson fans to rehash any of that mess.

Join Tigerillustrated.com subscribers on The West Zone message board!

But now it's appropriate. And it casts a favorable light on the Tigers' standing here in a season that was always going to tell us a great deal about this program's place in the world.

Games 3, 4 and 5 last season sent a resounding message about how far Clemson's offense had fallen after the loss of Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Amari Rodgers and others.

It wasn't even that they produced just a field goal in the opener against Georgia. That became more forgivable as the season went along and the Bulldogs proved to be one of the great defenses this game has ever seen.

No, it was almost all what happened during the aforementioned three-game stretch against Georgia Tech, N.C. State and Boston College.

They put 14 freaking points on the board at home against Georgia Tech.

They scored 14 points in regulation the next week against N.C. State.

They couldn't crack 20 points the next week at home against Boston College.

So no, last night wasn't some offensive masterpiece that will be placed into the category of the 41-7 annihilation of N.C. State when a lot of folks thought coming into that 2018 game that the Wolfpack were pretty good.

But it was unquestionably aesthetically pleasing when matched against the 2021 muck that we spent all offseason wondering whether this offense would be good enough to move past.

So many striking differences between this outfit and the one that walked off the field in disarray last year at Carter-Finley.

Non-football-related & off topics forum

The first would be the ability to move the chains, to execute down the field and sustain drives.