Is it still too early to start talking college football?

With about a month until the Clemson Tigers open fall practice and about two months until the first game, it probably is.

However, given that some of the other prominent sports topics currently include Wimbledon, the start of the Tour de France and NBA free agency (yawn, yawn and yawn), I’m taking the approach that it’s never too early for football.

After Clemson entered last season as the outright favorite, according to the media, to win the ACC (shows what we know) and considered by some a dark-horse contender for the national title, the campaign was ultimately marked by the same up-and-down mediocrity that pretty much defined the Tommy Bowden era, which ultimately ended just six games into the season after back-to-back league losses to Maryland and Wake Forest.

This year, the Tigers likely have only a marginal chance to begin the season as a ranked team and even the fan base, at least the more rational members of it, seem to believe a 7-5 or 8-4 finish would be considered something of a success.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

That being said, I also think there are reasons to believe it could be a better-than-advertised season in Tigertown.

While last year’s squad was thought to be loaded with talent and senior leadership — a notion the NFL clearly disagreed with, considering the lack of a single first-day draftee from Clemson — few stopped to consider the team’s glaring weaknesses, notably the lack of quality depth on the offensive line and in the linebacking corps.

Those deficiencies were only exacerbated by an ultra-conservative approach on both sides of the ball, resulting in a clear lack of aggression and physicality in the Tigers’ style of play — pretty much the antithesis of what you want — and the result was a season that fell far short of expectations.

This season, I think we may actually see just the opposite.

Most analysts are quickly able to assess what Clemson’s weaknesses are — the lack of any proven playmakers at quarterback, wide receiver and safety, the unknown commodity that is Dabo Swinney’s coaching staff and the return of what appears to be the same offensive linemen and linebackers that struggled so mightily last season.

In focusing on the obvious, I believe many are overlooking some clear indicators that this season’s Tigers could be a force to be reckoned with.

For one thing, after opting to return for his senior season, C.J. Spiller is the clear-cut centerpiece of this season’s offense, and we’ll finally get a chance to see what perhaps the most dynamic weapon in Clemson history can do in that role as opposed to the complementary one he’s filled to this point.

For another, while there is clearly inexperience at quarterback, there is also a wealth of talent, as the Tigers have three former Elite 11 campers on their roster in Willy Korn, Kyle Parker and Tajh Boyd, and Swinney seems determined to play the best player, not necessarily the most experienced, which wasn’t always the case under Bowden.

Also, the offensive line and linebacking corps both return basically intact, and while both units struggled last season, I think there’s reason to believe both could be vastly improved this time around.

On the O-line, guys like Antoine McClain and Mason Cloy, who looked like freshman — which they were — at times last season, looked like veterans in spring ball, and the fact that other guys like redshirt freshman Dalton Freeman and true freshman J.K. Jay are already pushing for playing time points to the Tigers developing quality depth in the offensive trenches.

At linebacker, Brandon Maye provided some intensity at MIKE last season as a redshirt freshman and should be one of the team’s defensive stars this time around. With Kavell Conner, the team’s leading tackler last season, returning at WILL, if the Tigers can find someone to step up at SAM, like Scotty Cooper, the collective group could be a strength.

And perhaps most importantly, the new attitude that Swinney seems to have infused in the team — marked by an attacking approach on both sides of the ball — could give the Tigers the edge they need to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, instead of the other way around.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Clemson will contend for a national title (it won’t) or even win the Atlantic Division (though it could). All I’m saying is this could finally be the year the Tigers actually exceed expectations, instead of falling woefully short of them.

And that, in and of itself, would be a giant leap in the right direction.