CLEMSON — They’re about as ready as they’re gonna be.

Since last winter, the hot spotlights of expectation have burned on Clemson’s offensive line.

With potent performers like Cullen Harper, James Davis, C.J. Spiller and Aaron Kelly populating the No. 9 Tigers’ offense, there is little question about Clemson’s potential for points and yardage.

But with only one full-time starter — junior center Thomas Austin — returning from 2007’s capable line, the plaudits lavished on the Tigers’ offense carry a caveat: “if the line can block for them.”

With Saturday’s much-anticipated Georgia Dome opener against No. 24 Alabama looming, the starters are set. The preparation is almost finished. Only one thing remains: their first huge test.

“Everyone’s been doubting the offensive line,” said junior right tackle Cory Lambert, who will make his second career start Saturday. “We’ve been practicing hard and feeding off the fuel of everyone doubting us. Hopefully we can go out there and put all our hard work to become one offensive line, one unit, and just get the job done.”

You know the stats by now: outside of Austin, the line has nine career starts collectively.

Starting left guard Jamarcus Russell has 86 snaps of experience, all in blowout situations. Can he, Lambert, Austin, right guard Barry Humphries (seven starts) and left tackle Chris Hairston (one start) form an effective line?

They’re confident — and, they say, most important – cohesive. Hairston is a sophomore, but the other four are fourth-year juniors who have climbed the depth chart together. They’re as comfortable at practice as they are eating dinner at Austin’s place.

“It’s a big reason we’re going to come together and do good this year,” Hairston said. “It’s not only on the field, it’s off the field. We do a lot of things together. I think we’ll do pretty good this year in terms of cohesion and being together on the offensive line.”

But unity can go only so far when confronted with enemies like Alabama’s blitzing, stunting defense and a lack of depth.

Alabama coach Nick Saban is regarded as one of the nation’s top defensive coaches, and although Saban has expressed concerns about his pass rush, the Tigers must contend with All-SEC linebacker Rolando McClain and 365-pound nose tackle Terrence Cody, whom Austin joked Wednesday “can probably rip a tree out by its roots.”

And the second-team line is all true and redshirt freshmen, meaning the front-liners must shoulder much of the load unless someone gets hurt. Bowden said he “won’t play a lot of” reserves and there will be only a “minimal rotation.”

To a man, the linemen say they’ve learned from a month of practice against one of the ACC’s most talented defensive lines. But Saturday will be the line’s litmus test. It remains possible, Bowden said, that the offense will minimize formations to build a comfort zone for the new line.

“We’ve done about all we can in camp,” he said. “I think we’re playing a good enough team that we’ll be able to evaluate (strengths and weaknesses) really good. If we were opening up with a lesser opponent in the first game, there would be more question marks in the first game.

“I think there’ll be fewer question marks after the game about how advanced we are at that position after the game. They’re pretty talented and their schemes are going to be multiple enough for us to see how advanced we are from an assignment standpoint.”

Now, the talk is almost over.

The hard part lies just ahead.

“There’s a lot of anticipation to answer those questions everyone’s been saying, talented but inexperienced,” Hairston said. “Now it’s time to show what we can do, come together, put on a pretty good performance and make sure our team wins.”