There have been six touchdowns on interceptions, five on fumbles and four on punts. Da’Ron Payne returned a fumble for a score against Mississippi, which was among the teams that ceded the fewest fumbles this season in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Eddie Jackson, who later sustained a season-ending injury, returned a punt 79 yards against Tennessee — the only punt-return touchdown the Volunteers allowed this season. Ryan Anderson intercepted Washington’s Jake Browning on Dec. 31 for that star quarterback’s only pick returned for a score this season.

So it was no wonder that when Swinney was asked on Saturday how to beat Alabama — he has come as close as anybody recently, falling in last year’s title game, 45-40, thanks in part to a 95-yard kickoff return by Alabama — that he knew the first order of business: “You can’t let them score on defense or special teams.”

The question of how to beat Alabama is the default one as Monday night approaches, simply because the Tide, who are going for their fifth title in eight seasons, have lost just one game in the past two seasons. Victory would give them a 27-game winning streak, the 10th longest since World War II, with no obvious end in sight.

But there just may be a playbook.

“Clemson might be the only team in college football that can beat Alabama,” said the CBS college football commentator Gary Danielson. (“I don’t think they will,” he added.)

A Clemson win would almost certainly begin with a positive turnover margin. In Alabama’s one loss this season or last, a fluky 43-37 defeat by Ole Miss in September 2015, the Rebels benefited from five turnovers and gave up none of their own. And there would be no nonoffensive touchdowns — no NOTs.