Brent Venables was already hard at work breaking down film of Clemson’s 2015 opponents last month when he noticed something interesting in Notre Dame’s resounding defeat at the hands of USC. The Irish, who travel to Death Valley on Oct. 3, were getting trounced 49-7 midway through the fourth quarter, and Venables couldn’t help but note that USC still had the bulk of its starting defense on the field.

This isn’t entirely uncommon. The stats look a lot better when the best players are on the field the whole game. But this isn’t a philosophy Venables ever has understood, and he’s hoping his plan of distributing as many snaps as possible to his bench players will pay some dividends this year.

“Sometimes it’s not quite as pretty at the end of the game if they put a couple cheap ones on you, but we’re building for the future and getting guys that are experienced,” Venables said.

Last season, Venables’ defense was oozing experience. Vic Beasley, Grady Jarrett, Stephone Anthony and a host of seniors anchored a unit that led the nation in nearly a dozen statistical categories. It was the culmination of a four-year journey that transformed Clemson’s D from national punchline into national powerhouse.

Now the journey begins again — but Venables isn’t exactly starting from scratch.

Nine seniors from last year’s two-deep have moved on, but the group that remains is not short on experience. While just three starters return, the Tigers have a host of players who have earned meaningful snaps over the past few seasons. In fact, 23 defenders had at least 75 snaps played last season.

“We’ve got players at every position in the front seven who have either started games in the last two years or have played substantial snaps,” Venables said. “But like all starters — can these guys play to the level of consistency that we just lost? That’s the challenge, getting these guys to grow up and take responsibility for the day-in, day-out grind of what it takes to be a starter.”

For some, there are fewer questions. Beasley’s former backup, Shaq Lawson, is the ACC’s only returning defender who accumulated at least 10 tackles for loss in each of the past two seasons. D.J. Reader and Carlos Watkins both have starting experience at tackle. Ben Boulware got a jump start on his 2015 campaign at linebacker by returning an interception for a TD against Oklahoma in Clemson's Russell Athletic Bowl win. B.J. Goodson and Korrin Wiggins have seen their share of work at outside linebacker.

In other words, this isn’t a group that figures to be overwhelmed by the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to match the legacy of the players who preceded them.

“That was a special group we had — not just at Clemson but in college football,” Venables said. “We had a great chemistry that is hard to coach, and hopefully these young guys have learned something from that. If we don’t have the work ethic and the toughness and competitiveness, it’ll be a substantial drop-off.”

With that in mind, Venables has been careful not to dole out too much advanced praise for the new starters stepping into bigger roles. What Beasley, Jarrett & Co. provided was so much more than just production on the field. That group valued the details as much as any Venables has coached and its work ethic was a rarity.

Last year’s seniors worked to instill that mentality in younger teammates, but there are no guarantees those seeds will take root.

“It’s one thing to talk about it now before they’ve ever really led, but they recognize what it takes,” Venables said. “It’s hard. It’s easy to talk about it. It’s easy to do it today or this week. But can you do it day in and day out? That’s the challenge of being a really good player and a really good leader.”

Regardless of the turnover, don’t expect the overall philosophy behind Venables’ D to change much. The game plan won’t be adjusted to account for the loss of Beasley or Jarrett, but the demands on those who remain will be bigger.

While last year’s D was led by the front seven, Venables said the secondary will need to star in the early going this season. And while the pass D at Clemson was tops in the nation last year, it won’t have the luxury of those stars up front to set the table in 2015. That puts the onus on emerging stars such as Mackensie Alexander and Jayron Kearse to step up.

“They need to be better than what they were,” Venables said. “That ball may not come out [as fast]. They’ll need to be tighter in their coverage, play better awareness and eliminate some mistakes. They need to make marked improvement.”

There’s also the not-so-small task of finding youngsters ready to take on the snaps that Lawson, Reader and others consumed in reserve roles last year. That’s perhaps the biggest mystery — and greatest source of excitement — on D as Clemson gets set to open spring practice.

“It’s one thing running over bags and around cones,” Venables said. “We feel good about our young guys, and it’ll be a process. But maybe after a few weeks we’ll feel better about proclaiming who can break that two-deep with those young guys. But we like the group of guys we have in here.”

The truth is, the defense won’t be the same in 2015 as it was a year ago. That group was unique, and Venables understands there will be growing pains.

But he also isn’t surprised this day has come. Even as the Tigers were busy tormenting opposing QBs throughout 2014, he was planning for the inevitable.

“Some things aren’t going to be the same,” Venables said. “Vic Beasley isn’t just going to show up. That doesn’t happen. The older you are, the better you get, the less mistakes you make. We may not have that, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be really good.”