A very interesting stat could have Texas A&M fans extra hyped for the upcoming season. The two teams with the most sacks last season were Alabama (52) and Clemson (48). Those two teams, perhaps not so coincidentally as it turns out, played for the 2015 national championship.

That’s where Aggies sack masters Myles Garrett and Daeshon Hall come into play. The bulldozing bookends represent one of the top pass-rushing duos in Power 5 conference football. Garrett led the SEC and tied for fifth in the nation last season with 12.5 sacks, while Hall recorded 7.0 sacks in 2015.

If both can continue to improve at the pace they showed from 2014 to 2015, it could prove very advantageous for the 2016 campaign. Garrett improved slightly on his 2014 totals of 11.5 sacks. Hall made even bigger strides, increasing his sack total from 4.5 sacks in 2014.

Projecting out with that same pace of improvement for this season, the two are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 25.5 sacks for 2016. That means if the Aggies could get another 22.5 combined from the remainder of the team, they would be where Clemson was last season. The Aggies totaled 14.5 sacks last season from players other than Garrett and Hall. So there would have to be some improvement on that end of it as well.

But if anyone can squeeze out every ounce of talent from his players, it’s Aggies second-year DC John Chavis. “Chief” already improved the defense as a whole in his first year at College Station and if history is any indication, the veteran coach will only make that side of the football even better in 2016.

While both of Clemson’s top junior pass-rushers from 2015, Shaq Lawson (12.5) and Kevin Dodd (12.0) – who combined for just over half of the Tigers’ team total — left early for the NFL, Texas A&M’s prolific pair still has a ways to go to match up with Alabama’s D-line/linebacker duo of Jonathan Allen and Tim Williams.

The two are easily the standard in college football having combined for 22.5 sacks a season ago as juniors (three more than the total from Garrett/Hall). With both returning for their senior years, the Tide will once again wreak havoc in opposing teams’ backfields.

But should that projected improvement come to fruition, the duo of Garrett and Hall would take a back seat to no other pair in Power 5 conferences. Aside from the Tide’s pair of pass-rushers, only the Aggies’ Garrett and Hall return intact from last season.

Louisville was poised to return elite pass-rushers in Devonte Fields, who recorded three sacks in the Cardinals’ 27-21 Music City Bowl victory over the Aggies, and Trevon Young. However, in that same game, Young was injured (dislocated and fractured hip) and will now be a redshirt for the 2016 season. The two combined for 19.5 sacks in 2015, level with Garrett/Hall.

Missouri’s young but ever-improving duo of Charles Harris and Walter Brady, who split 14 sacks last season, were to be the future of the Tigers’ defense. But that all changed last week when Brady, whose 7.0 sacks was tied for the most by any FBS freshman, was dismissed from the team for an unspecified violation of team rules.

The cream, it would appear, is rising to the top, and Texas A&M is set to challenge Alabama for sack supremacy not only in the SEC, but also among all Power 5 conference duos.