Jadeveon Clowney had modest stats in his final season at South Carolina after recording 13.5 sacks and 23.5 tackles for a loss as a sophomore.

"When I walked into the meeting rooms, all my coaches said, 'You're playing' and 'Keep playing hard,' " Clowney told Yahoo! Sports. "If you watch our tapes, everybody can see I'm playing hard. Guys that don't know anything. ... People expect me to get five sacks, 10 tackles for loss every game, but that wasn't going to happen the way teams were playing me.

"I'm taking 80 snaps a game, all our snaps per game, I'm playing them all. Coaches were like, 'Keep playing the way you play. We love the way you play.' "

Clowney said criticism directed toward him, especially early in the season, was unwarranted.

"I kind of laughed at it," Clowney told Yahoo! Sports. "People are going to say what they want to say. I bet half of the people that are talking can't play football. They just see what they see, or don't know nothing about the game. I just get a laugh out of it.

"(My thought was) just keep winning football games. They're going to keep talking. We're going to keep winning games and try to win the SEC East. That was one of our goals this year. We fell short, but finishing No. 4 in the country has to be the best finish in South Carolina history."