Dabo Swinney making major change to Clemson coaching staff, per reports
Dabo Swinney is making a big change to his Clemson coaching staff.
Offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter has been fired. The reported replacement is TCU’s Garrett Riley, who won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant for the 2022 season. Sports Illustrated reports Riley is on his way to Clemson.
#Clemson is set to hire #TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley to be its next OC, after firing Brandon Streeter today, sources tell @ClowESPN and me. A deal could be finalized shortly. Riley won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach this season.
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) January 12, 2023
Clemson's Board has posted a 4:05 pm ET meeting Friday to approve an assistant coach contract (it's Riley).
Source tells @SINow that Riley is arriving tonight in Clemson.https://t.co/cmTrH47vCL
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) January 12, 2023
Swinney released a statement Thursday announcing Streeter would not be retained:
“I am incredibly appreciative of Brandon for all he accomplished at Clemson in his 15 years as a player, graduate assistant, position coach and offensive coordinator. I am thankful for Brandon and love him and his family. He has always represented Clemson University with great pride, and I know he will continue to do great things.
“As the leader of this program, I am accountable for our staff and accountable for our results, and though we took a step forward offensively in 2022, after evaluating our offense in-depth, I felt it was in the best interest of our program to seek new leadership at that position. These decisions are never easy, but it is my job to evaluate and assess every part of our program every year, and this was just the right time to make a change.
“I look forward to bringing in a dynamic, proven leader at offensive coordinator with the specific purpose of meeting — and raising — the standard of excellence that has been established at Clemson. I passionately believe in our staff and in the young men in our program and am excited about the opportunity to see them grow even more in 2023.”
Clemson went 11-3 in 2022, winning the ACC but missing the College Football Playoff and dropping the Orange Bowl to a Tennessee team without Hendon Hooker.
Riley, 33, followed Sonny Dykes from SMU to TCU after 2 seasons with the Mustangs.
Aw shucks, Dabo.
Bus
V
Streeter
The few times I watched Clemson this season it looked like to me the offensive line was a big issue.
This left out that Jeff Scott, fired from USF, is back as offensive analyst and recruiting coordinator. He probably can’t take on an official co-coordinator role because that would have prevented Riley from coming, but he is definitely going to be one of the cooks in the kitchen.
Clemson is fascinating. They got better results when they mostly relied on 3 star players from Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas and added to that an occasional blue chip (usually at QB or WR). But since winning the pair of national titles, they have ditched the regional recruiting thing for national recruiting and in the process have landed a bunch of 4 and 5 star players from all over the place that have either been just average, not fit their system or just flat out not panned out. They haven’t been nearly as good on offense since, and on defense they have a bunch of very talented guys that make individual plays but don’t mesh as a unit behind a common strategy.
I think that when they were doing regional recruiting and getting a lot of 3 star and even the occasional 2 star, they were relying more on their own in-person evaluation and film study. They also landed a lot of “blue collar” – for lack of a better term – guys who were thrilled to get a shot playing major college football or were actual fans of Clemson instead of guys just using it as a 3 year way station to the NFL. Those guys were far more willing to wait their turn on the bench, switch positions, be role-players etc. and seemed to have more grit. A good example of this was Wayne Gallman. He was a 3 star because his high school chose an “RB by committee approach” on a loaded team that won the state title. Even though it ruined his stats and recruiting rankings, he didn’t complain. He set the all-time NCAA rushing record at Clemson and is now in his 6th NFL season. Meanwhile a lot of the 5 star RBs that Clemson has recruited since have hit the transfer portal because they didn’t get the ball as true freshmen.
Good P O V…and yes, it seemed that for quite a while Dabo got the most out of the least and focused on studs at the skill positions and the front 7 on defense. It didn’t hurt that Dabo maintained continuity in the OC/DC positions during that run as well. I think Dabo saw how quickly he was falling behind the big 5 (Bama-tOSU-UGa-Tex-USCwest) in elite recruiting and started chasing stars instead of his character bread and butter. Not to mention what a huge bust DJ was to the program. Now add in losing his top right hand men and playing cupcake schedules, these are all contributing factors to the softness Clemgoob exhibits now…can he turn it around? Possibly, but in the meantime the teams ahead of them in the pecking order have all only gotten stronger. This may be a good hire from a schematic standpoint, question is can Riley recruit and coach at the highest level…and is this Riley as egotistical as his older brother?
Excellent hire
A great hire