*before I start - I’m shamelessly using this post to ask if anyone has a spare parking pass for Saturday’s game*
“I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could’ve been any clearer, if you wanna make Clemson Football a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.” - William Howard Taft
2010 was the inaugural year of My Thoughts (Long) here on The West Zone message board, and one steady drum that I beat throughout 2010 and into the 2011 offseason was - the only way Clemson was going to improve would be if Dabo Swinney took a hard look in the mirror and made some significant changes to his philosophy on how he ran his program. Even after the staff changes at the conclusion of the 2010 season, it was still a waiting game to see how much the head man himself was willing to alter his approach to managing the program. And Dabo himself realized this needed to happen and, to his credit, he did it. And the changes he made put Clemson on a path to its most successful decade of football ever. Hell, one of the most successful decades of football for any program ever. And in 2023, I think Dabo himself must, must know by now that that time has come again.
I waited on hold for last week’s tiger calls, and likely won’t be able to call in the next couple of weeks. But my question for Dabo was: “Coach, I think even you would agree that your philosophy on roster management and staffing throughout your tenure has been unique and unconventional, and this has lead Clemson to unprecedented success. However over the last few years, we’ve seen programs strategically use the transfer portal to catch up and maybe even surpass Clemson. All three (at the time) teams that we’ve lost to this year in Duke, FSU, and Miami have utilized the portal to improve their rosters and, ultimately, beat us. Do you believe that your philosophy on roster management and staffing can still be successful in the new realities of college football?”
I’m sure Dabo would have said yes, and probably talked about turnovers and how the transfer portal would not have helped them not fumble the ball at the 1 yard line. But the obviously answer to this question is, no. Dabo’s roster management philosophy has always been a bit risky, but it worked because we were able to recruit enough elite players that it made up for the handful of gift scholarships he’d give out. Now its much more difficult to win those recruiting battles and much more difficult to keep your roster in tact year over year. Yet Dabo pushed forth with an outdated mentality. Dabo crows about the program’s accomplishments - playoff appearances, national championships, and to be sure those are enormous accomplishments that have earned Dabo tons of grace and patience amongst a fanbase that he has called “a problem.” But ALL of those accomplishments took place before the transfer portal and NIL combo existed.
Clemson does not need to turn over its entire roster through the portal. But where would we be now had we gotten just one playmaker at WR? More depth on our OL? A good kicker? A dependable backup QB? If we had just filled the gaps strategically, if we had only added 5-6 players to our 2 deep, where would we be? Could it have stopped Shipley from fumbling on the goal line? Maybe not, but maybe it gives us the option to sit Shipley and rotate in another back. Could it have stopped Cade from inexplicably pulling the ball on the last play? Maybe not but it would have given us an option to sit Cade and get a more trustworthy QB in place. Would have made our OL elite? Probably not but it would have allowed us to more easily absorb the Parks injury and not completely fall apart due to lack of depth.
That’s why Clemson needs the portal. And yeah, it’d be great to pull out a major playmaker as well, but damn if all we did was shore up our depth chart then I have to think we’re in a better position right now. We’re at least in a better position to be in a better position.
Barry Switzer said (and I know this is one of @Cris_Ard ’s favorite quotes so I hope I don’t screw it up with my paraphrasing) that 90% of college football was talent acquisition. I’d argue that 90% of really any sport at any level is about talent acquisition, and that’s still the case today. But how programs go about acquiring talent has changed dramatically and Clemson simply hasn’t accepted that reality. And until the head coach looks in the mirror and addresses that, no amount of staff changes will make a whole hell of a lot of difference.
Let me be very blunt: Dabo needs to either adjust his way of thinking on the portal and NIL, or he needs to move on. I am 100% not, not, not in the camp of “fire Dabo“ I absolutely want Dabo to be our head coach in 2024 and for years to come and I want him to win more championships and further cement his legacy as one of the GOATs in college football history and I hope that a decade from now we’re looking back on 2021-2023 as a bump in the road in an otherwise amazing career. But without the proper changes in philosophy, I also can’t endorse allowing him to be the head coach in perpetuity, dragging the program down and erasing his own legacy. Its time to go in one direction or the other.
Now let’s talk about staffing. I’m going to run down each position coach and give my personal opinion as to whether they should stay or go, and give a couple of options for replacements.
Garrett Riley - QBs/Offensive Coordinator - In most other scenarios, the OC would be the first head on the chopping block in a season where the offense has struggled maintain any success. In truth, it’d be pretty easy to argue that the offense is poorly managed from the top, as I don’t believe any individual position group is as bad as it is made to look as a result of each other position group. Cade is untrustworthy, jittery, and throws the ball into danger, but this problem is made even worse by poor protection form the OL, the OL lacks depth and physicality, but this problem is made even worse by running backs who lack vision and can’t find the hole when it is there, etc. In other words, the whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts and there’s been a cycle of suck generated by each position group to the next.
But, in this scenario, I do not think we should move on from Riley. Riley‘s case would be pretty convincing - he inherited both the personnel and the staff, and given the big picture issues that need to be addressed, it looks more and more like Riley was put in a bad position here and had little chance of success from the get go. Unlike Goodwin, Riley wasn’t an experimental hire. He’s a proven commodity at OC and has had big time success. While its certainly tempting to blow the whole thing up and start over, especially if we don’t manage to get to bowl eligibility, Riley deserves more time and more support.
Tyler Grisham - WRs/Recruiting coordinator - Grisham became Clemson’s WR coach in February of 2020, and since that time I don’t think many would argue that Clemson’s production at WR has been on a steady decline, and under his guidance “WRU” has all but ceased to exist. From a production standpoint, there is certainly blame to go around with poor QB play over the last 3 seasons, but in each season we’ve seen a WR corps that is increasingly less prepared to help the QB out. We’ve also seen consistently poor blocking on the edge from WRs after that was a point of pride in our WR room in years prior, and our screen games have suffered as a result.
In my opinion, Clemson should move on from Tyler Grisham at WR coach. The most obvious answer for a replacement would be to pull Jeff Scott back in, but who knows is that something Scott wants, and who knows if he’d be as successful in a second stint with the Tigers. Scott could certainly fill the recruiting coordinator role as well. Looking out amongst the college football landscape, I’d consider making phone calls to Kelsey Pope at Tennessee, Justin Stepp at South Carolina, Cortez Hankton at LSU, and maybe Chansi Stuckey at Notre Dame. Whether these guys are realistic targets, I don’t know, and certainly there are probably lots of other qualified candidates that I don’t know about, and I’d love to hear other suggestions from posters who might know more names than me.
CJ Spiller - RBs - CJ Spiller is one of the greatest Clemson players of all time, and probably the most impactful as you can draw a direct line from Spiller’s signing in 2006 to the recruiting success we had in the early 2010s that lead to multiple national championships. Spiller deserves to be on the ROH, and I don’t think younger Clemson fans can truly appreciate how special Spiller was and what his signing represented to a Clemson program that had struggled to break through with marquee prospects, particularly when Florida State was involved as well.
But under Spiller, our running backs seemed to have regressed. Again, the cycle of suck exacerbates the issues, but many of our turnover issues fall squarely on the shoulders of the RBs, and Shipley has been woefully inconsistent, almost refusing to burst through the gap at times, and we’ve also seen Shipley feel perfectly comfortable with barking back at Spiller on multiple occasIons. I would suggest that Clemson should move on from Spiller, as painful as that may be. A shortlist here would be Cadillac Williams at Auburn, John Settle at Rice, Jim Mastro at Oregon, Ron Gould with the LA Rams. Lots of really good RB coach candidates out there. Williams is probably a long shot as he’s at his alma mater, same with Mike Hart at Michigan who would also be a home run hire IMO.
Kyle Richardson - TEs/Passing Game coordinator - So far in 2023, the TE position is pretty much the only one that hasn‘t contributed to the cycle of suck. In my view, Richardson has developed the TEs well and we haven’t seemed to miss a beat in our WR production despite losing one to the NFL last year. I’m not sure what Richardson’s contribution is to the coordination of the offense as a whole, but based on TE production, I wouldn’t endorse replacing Richardson.
Thomas Austin - OL - I felt that the OL played well against Duke, and played well against FSU. I think that the Parks injury was extremely significant and kind of caused everything else to fall like a house of cards. There were issues at LT early, but losing Parks created new issues at RG as Mayes simply doesn’t have the physicality to get in there and bang with big defensive tackles on every down. He’s a serviceable backup and that’s about it. I’ve said it 100 times and I’ll keep saying it - every fan of every team everywhere hates their OL Coach. The OL is an incredibly easy target when things don’t go well, but there are a myriad of non-OL issues that can impact how the OL performs, and OL is the go to item for critique when a fan wants to sound like they know what they’re talking about.
But, the offensive line is bad. They have regressed throughout the season and I don’t think there’s been much individual improvement year over year, most noticeably with Blake Miller, who just hasn’t developed into a consistent player at RT. I think, and @Paul Strelow wrote about this as well, that there are non-thomas austin related issues that are impacting Thomas Austin’s - or any OL coaches - chances of success. We have carried far too few numbers at OL for years, and that’s always a recipe for disaster at a position with a naturally high percentage of misses and where true development takes 2-3 years. I also think that the head coach has a weird philosophy when it comes to moving guys around up front and it makes it difficult to truly get the “best 5” on the field.
I do not believe that Austin has gotten a completely fair shake out of all of this, but at 4-4 and with an offensive line that hasn’t shown week over week improvement, its hard to argue that a change shouldn’t be made here. The best OL coach in the country, IMO, is Joe Rudolph at Notre Dame. Realistic to get him? Probably not, but he’s worth a phone call. I also think Scott Huff at Washington would be an excellent hire, and is probably a more realistic target. Steve Addazio and Matt Luke are popular names as well and with good reason. I think Matt Luke would likely be an excellent culture fit and is a really good pure OL coach. Sam Pittman may be available at the end of the year, but I can’t think it would be possible at all for him and Dabo to co-exist. I don’t think Dabo would allow an assistant to recruit a player by telling him to ”come to Clemson and get some pussy.” @OrangeTigerTower mentioned Joe Philbin yesterday, and that would be an interesting hire. A solid OL coach at Iowa before a long and successful career in the NFL, he’s currently an analyst at Ohio State. He’s a very serious, workman like coach who would certainly bring a no-nonsense approach to the OL room. But he’s 62 and I’m not sure how much of a recruiter he would be.
I do have another suggestion, and that is having 2 OL coaches. You’ll see below that I do not think Hall should be retained, and I’d argue it would be better to give Eason the entire DL and have a 2nd OL coach than to continue with one OL coach and have a DEs coach.
Wes Goodwin - LBs/Defensive coordinator - Wes Goodwin was a bad hire. He will always be a bad hire. That said, the defense isn’t the issue as a whole, but the LBs have consistently underperformed and been out of position despite their high talent level. I think Goodwin is a better schemer than he coach and I think that’s because Goodwin isn’t an elite communicator. He’s smart and obviously has an amazing memory and can draw up really good pressure packages, but I worry that he doesn’t have the ability to communicate at a high level and this makes him a subpar position coach and also makes it difficult for him to filter his vision down to his assistants and to his players. Make no mistake, the bulk of Clemson’s talent is on the defensive side of the ball. I’m also squeamish about Goodwin’s ability to recruit and worry that a talent drop off in the near future will expose him. Goodwin’s best role is probably that off a defensive analyst, who can help build game plans during the week and then leet others do the heavy lifting.
IMO, Clemson needs a replacement here for long term success of the program. Jon Heacock at Iowa State would be my first call here. I’d also look to Phil Parker at Iowa, Jesse Minter at MIchigan (probably a very long shot), Joe Rossi at Minnesota, and Bryan Brown at Cincinnati. A couple of years ago I was begging Dabo to go after Jim Knowles at Oklahoma State but he’s now coordinating the #2 scoring defense in the country at Ohio State.
Mikey Conn - Safeties/Co-D Coord - I think Conn has acquitted himself well after being a roll of the eyes hire a few years back. The safeties have been developed and are clearly playing at a higher level in 2023 than they did in 2022. To my mind, the performance of the safeties have warranted a place for Conn on the staff moving forward.
Mike Reed - cornerbacks/special teams coord - Do I really need to say anything here? Keep.
Well, almost. We absolutely suck on special teams. To be fair, this is a problem that has long proceeded Reed’s special teams coordinator title and is more tied to the head coach than to Reed. Clemson very badly needs a new vision at special teams and I think this is another one of those “man in the mirror” moments for the head man. As much as I loathe Andre Powell, when he was brought in and given control of special teams, we saw an immediate improvement there. Dabo needs to do something similar, and that starts with giving someone, anyone, the freedom to make whatever changes and calls they need to on special teams.
Lemanski Hall - DEs - Our defensive ends have consistently underperformed/regressed over the last several years. I would argue that the issue here is even more pressing than the issue at WR, where we haven’t had elite talent over the last couple of seasons. We have continued to have elite talent along the defensive line and at defensive end, yet the production and development simply hasn’t been there.
I believe Clemson needs to go in another direction with its defensive ends coach. This one is tougher to replace. There aren’t many “defensive end” coaches out there. This is where I suggest just not replacing Hall With another DEs coach and instead filling in a 2nd OL coach.
Nick Eason - DTs - Eason is as close to Marion Hobby as we’re gonna get without Marion Hobby. I simply don’t think we could upgrade at this position and I think the interior DL has played well enough to warrant Eason’s return in 2024.
Strength and conditioning - This is tricky for me. I don’t have the knowledge to really critique here or offer up replacements. I do, however, wonder if its not time for Joey Batson to consider retirement and moving some youth into this position. The S&C coach is an extremely, extremely important facet of your staff. He will see your players more than the coaching staff will over the offseason and has a tremendous impact not just on their physical development, but on the development of their mental toughness and the culture you wish to instill in your players. I think Batson got way, way too much heat in the early 2010s from posters who are, by and large, no longer on the board and it was proven out that Batson is pretty damn good at his job once we began recruiting high level players. I don’t know that I’d be on board with forcing a change here, but I don’t know that Dabo shouldn’t give him a nudge towards retirement at this point.
Clemson football, in and of itself, isn’t doomed. There’s still a very solid framework in place for Clemson to very quickly right the ship and get back to winning at a high level. But Dabo has got to be able and willing to admit that much of his vision for staffing has proven out to be a failure. He’s got to be willing to adjust to the new era of college football. The longer it takes him to make these changes, the lower the program will fall until those changes are made.
I do not believe any staff changes will happen during the season. But I think it would be very, very difficult for Dabo to stand pat on this staff and maintain any sense of credibility with the fan base - even those not in the “1.5%.”
Dabo lauded his team over and over again after the NC State game for never quitting, and I got the feeling that he was more or less trying to speak that into existence. This team is dangerously close to completely missing out on the post-season, and when you’re used to winning championships and being the best team on the block, a season like this makes it really easy to go into business for yourself or just downright throw in the towel. I expect us to show up and play hard Saturday and probably keep it close with Notre Dame. But absolutely nothing about this team has led me to believe that we can make the plays we’d need to to win the game. When you look at what Miami was able to do to our defense late in the game on the ground, there’s no doubt Notre Dame will be able to do the same. I think Clemson fans need to be mentally prepared for a 5-7 or 6-6 finish. At this point, I’m really focused on just beating South Carolina.
Go Tigers!
“I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could’ve been any clearer, if you wanna make Clemson Football a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.” - William Howard Taft
2010 was the inaugural year of My Thoughts (Long) here on The West Zone message board, and one steady drum that I beat throughout 2010 and into the 2011 offseason was - the only way Clemson was going to improve would be if Dabo Swinney took a hard look in the mirror and made some significant changes to his philosophy on how he ran his program. Even after the staff changes at the conclusion of the 2010 season, it was still a waiting game to see how much the head man himself was willing to alter his approach to managing the program. And Dabo himself realized this needed to happen and, to his credit, he did it. And the changes he made put Clemson on a path to its most successful decade of football ever. Hell, one of the most successful decades of football for any program ever. And in 2023, I think Dabo himself must, must know by now that that time has come again.
I waited on hold for last week’s tiger calls, and likely won’t be able to call in the next couple of weeks. But my question for Dabo was: “Coach, I think even you would agree that your philosophy on roster management and staffing throughout your tenure has been unique and unconventional, and this has lead Clemson to unprecedented success. However over the last few years, we’ve seen programs strategically use the transfer portal to catch up and maybe even surpass Clemson. All three (at the time) teams that we’ve lost to this year in Duke, FSU, and Miami have utilized the portal to improve their rosters and, ultimately, beat us. Do you believe that your philosophy on roster management and staffing can still be successful in the new realities of college football?”
I’m sure Dabo would have said yes, and probably talked about turnovers and how the transfer portal would not have helped them not fumble the ball at the 1 yard line. But the obviously answer to this question is, no. Dabo’s roster management philosophy has always been a bit risky, but it worked because we were able to recruit enough elite players that it made up for the handful of gift scholarships he’d give out. Now its much more difficult to win those recruiting battles and much more difficult to keep your roster in tact year over year. Yet Dabo pushed forth with an outdated mentality. Dabo crows about the program’s accomplishments - playoff appearances, national championships, and to be sure those are enormous accomplishments that have earned Dabo tons of grace and patience amongst a fanbase that he has called “a problem.” But ALL of those accomplishments took place before the transfer portal and NIL combo existed.
Clemson does not need to turn over its entire roster through the portal. But where would we be now had we gotten just one playmaker at WR? More depth on our OL? A good kicker? A dependable backup QB? If we had just filled the gaps strategically, if we had only added 5-6 players to our 2 deep, where would we be? Could it have stopped Shipley from fumbling on the goal line? Maybe not, but maybe it gives us the option to sit Shipley and rotate in another back. Could it have stopped Cade from inexplicably pulling the ball on the last play? Maybe not but it would have given us an option to sit Cade and get a more trustworthy QB in place. Would have made our OL elite? Probably not but it would have allowed us to more easily absorb the Parks injury and not completely fall apart due to lack of depth.
That’s why Clemson needs the portal. And yeah, it’d be great to pull out a major playmaker as well, but damn if all we did was shore up our depth chart then I have to think we’re in a better position right now. We’re at least in a better position to be in a better position.
Barry Switzer said (and I know this is one of @Cris_Ard ’s favorite quotes so I hope I don’t screw it up with my paraphrasing) that 90% of college football was talent acquisition. I’d argue that 90% of really any sport at any level is about talent acquisition, and that’s still the case today. But how programs go about acquiring talent has changed dramatically and Clemson simply hasn’t accepted that reality. And until the head coach looks in the mirror and addresses that, no amount of staff changes will make a whole hell of a lot of difference.
Let me be very blunt: Dabo needs to either adjust his way of thinking on the portal and NIL, or he needs to move on. I am 100% not, not, not in the camp of “fire Dabo“ I absolutely want Dabo to be our head coach in 2024 and for years to come and I want him to win more championships and further cement his legacy as one of the GOATs in college football history and I hope that a decade from now we’re looking back on 2021-2023 as a bump in the road in an otherwise amazing career. But without the proper changes in philosophy, I also can’t endorse allowing him to be the head coach in perpetuity, dragging the program down and erasing his own legacy. Its time to go in one direction or the other.
Now let’s talk about staffing. I’m going to run down each position coach and give my personal opinion as to whether they should stay or go, and give a couple of options for replacements.
Garrett Riley - QBs/Offensive Coordinator - In most other scenarios, the OC would be the first head on the chopping block in a season where the offense has struggled maintain any success. In truth, it’d be pretty easy to argue that the offense is poorly managed from the top, as I don’t believe any individual position group is as bad as it is made to look as a result of each other position group. Cade is untrustworthy, jittery, and throws the ball into danger, but this problem is made even worse by poor protection form the OL, the OL lacks depth and physicality, but this problem is made even worse by running backs who lack vision and can’t find the hole when it is there, etc. In other words, the whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts and there’s been a cycle of suck generated by each position group to the next.
But, in this scenario, I do not think we should move on from Riley. Riley‘s case would be pretty convincing - he inherited both the personnel and the staff, and given the big picture issues that need to be addressed, it looks more and more like Riley was put in a bad position here and had little chance of success from the get go. Unlike Goodwin, Riley wasn’t an experimental hire. He’s a proven commodity at OC and has had big time success. While its certainly tempting to blow the whole thing up and start over, especially if we don’t manage to get to bowl eligibility, Riley deserves more time and more support.
Tyler Grisham - WRs/Recruiting coordinator - Grisham became Clemson’s WR coach in February of 2020, and since that time I don’t think many would argue that Clemson’s production at WR has been on a steady decline, and under his guidance “WRU” has all but ceased to exist. From a production standpoint, there is certainly blame to go around with poor QB play over the last 3 seasons, but in each season we’ve seen a WR corps that is increasingly less prepared to help the QB out. We’ve also seen consistently poor blocking on the edge from WRs after that was a point of pride in our WR room in years prior, and our screen games have suffered as a result.
In my opinion, Clemson should move on from Tyler Grisham at WR coach. The most obvious answer for a replacement would be to pull Jeff Scott back in, but who knows is that something Scott wants, and who knows if he’d be as successful in a second stint with the Tigers. Scott could certainly fill the recruiting coordinator role as well. Looking out amongst the college football landscape, I’d consider making phone calls to Kelsey Pope at Tennessee, Justin Stepp at South Carolina, Cortez Hankton at LSU, and maybe Chansi Stuckey at Notre Dame. Whether these guys are realistic targets, I don’t know, and certainly there are probably lots of other qualified candidates that I don’t know about, and I’d love to hear other suggestions from posters who might know more names than me.
CJ Spiller - RBs - CJ Spiller is one of the greatest Clemson players of all time, and probably the most impactful as you can draw a direct line from Spiller’s signing in 2006 to the recruiting success we had in the early 2010s that lead to multiple national championships. Spiller deserves to be on the ROH, and I don’t think younger Clemson fans can truly appreciate how special Spiller was and what his signing represented to a Clemson program that had struggled to break through with marquee prospects, particularly when Florida State was involved as well.
But under Spiller, our running backs seemed to have regressed. Again, the cycle of suck exacerbates the issues, but many of our turnover issues fall squarely on the shoulders of the RBs, and Shipley has been woefully inconsistent, almost refusing to burst through the gap at times, and we’ve also seen Shipley feel perfectly comfortable with barking back at Spiller on multiple occasIons. I would suggest that Clemson should move on from Spiller, as painful as that may be. A shortlist here would be Cadillac Williams at Auburn, John Settle at Rice, Jim Mastro at Oregon, Ron Gould with the LA Rams. Lots of really good RB coach candidates out there. Williams is probably a long shot as he’s at his alma mater, same with Mike Hart at Michigan who would also be a home run hire IMO.
Kyle Richardson - TEs/Passing Game coordinator - So far in 2023, the TE position is pretty much the only one that hasn‘t contributed to the cycle of suck. In my view, Richardson has developed the TEs well and we haven’t seemed to miss a beat in our WR production despite losing one to the NFL last year. I’m not sure what Richardson’s contribution is to the coordination of the offense as a whole, but based on TE production, I wouldn’t endorse replacing Richardson.
Thomas Austin - OL - I felt that the OL played well against Duke, and played well against FSU. I think that the Parks injury was extremely significant and kind of caused everything else to fall like a house of cards. There were issues at LT early, but losing Parks created new issues at RG as Mayes simply doesn’t have the physicality to get in there and bang with big defensive tackles on every down. He’s a serviceable backup and that’s about it. I’ve said it 100 times and I’ll keep saying it - every fan of every team everywhere hates their OL Coach. The OL is an incredibly easy target when things don’t go well, but there are a myriad of non-OL issues that can impact how the OL performs, and OL is the go to item for critique when a fan wants to sound like they know what they’re talking about.
But, the offensive line is bad. They have regressed throughout the season and I don’t think there’s been much individual improvement year over year, most noticeably with Blake Miller, who just hasn’t developed into a consistent player at RT. I think, and @Paul Strelow wrote about this as well, that there are non-thomas austin related issues that are impacting Thomas Austin’s - or any OL coaches - chances of success. We have carried far too few numbers at OL for years, and that’s always a recipe for disaster at a position with a naturally high percentage of misses and where true development takes 2-3 years. I also think that the head coach has a weird philosophy when it comes to moving guys around up front and it makes it difficult to truly get the “best 5” on the field.
I do not believe that Austin has gotten a completely fair shake out of all of this, but at 4-4 and with an offensive line that hasn’t shown week over week improvement, its hard to argue that a change shouldn’t be made here. The best OL coach in the country, IMO, is Joe Rudolph at Notre Dame. Realistic to get him? Probably not, but he’s worth a phone call. I also think Scott Huff at Washington would be an excellent hire, and is probably a more realistic target. Steve Addazio and Matt Luke are popular names as well and with good reason. I think Matt Luke would likely be an excellent culture fit and is a really good pure OL coach. Sam Pittman may be available at the end of the year, but I can’t think it would be possible at all for him and Dabo to co-exist. I don’t think Dabo would allow an assistant to recruit a player by telling him to ”come to Clemson and get some pussy.” @OrangeTigerTower mentioned Joe Philbin yesterday, and that would be an interesting hire. A solid OL coach at Iowa before a long and successful career in the NFL, he’s currently an analyst at Ohio State. He’s a very serious, workman like coach who would certainly bring a no-nonsense approach to the OL room. But he’s 62 and I’m not sure how much of a recruiter he would be.
I do have another suggestion, and that is having 2 OL coaches. You’ll see below that I do not think Hall should be retained, and I’d argue it would be better to give Eason the entire DL and have a 2nd OL coach than to continue with one OL coach and have a DEs coach.
Wes Goodwin - LBs/Defensive coordinator - Wes Goodwin was a bad hire. He will always be a bad hire. That said, the defense isn’t the issue as a whole, but the LBs have consistently underperformed and been out of position despite their high talent level. I think Goodwin is a better schemer than he coach and I think that’s because Goodwin isn’t an elite communicator. He’s smart and obviously has an amazing memory and can draw up really good pressure packages, but I worry that he doesn’t have the ability to communicate at a high level and this makes him a subpar position coach and also makes it difficult for him to filter his vision down to his assistants and to his players. Make no mistake, the bulk of Clemson’s talent is on the defensive side of the ball. I’m also squeamish about Goodwin’s ability to recruit and worry that a talent drop off in the near future will expose him. Goodwin’s best role is probably that off a defensive analyst, who can help build game plans during the week and then leet others do the heavy lifting.
IMO, Clemson needs a replacement here for long term success of the program. Jon Heacock at Iowa State would be my first call here. I’d also look to Phil Parker at Iowa, Jesse Minter at MIchigan (probably a very long shot), Joe Rossi at Minnesota, and Bryan Brown at Cincinnati. A couple of years ago I was begging Dabo to go after Jim Knowles at Oklahoma State but he’s now coordinating the #2 scoring defense in the country at Ohio State.
Mikey Conn - Safeties/Co-D Coord - I think Conn has acquitted himself well after being a roll of the eyes hire a few years back. The safeties have been developed and are clearly playing at a higher level in 2023 than they did in 2022. To my mind, the performance of the safeties have warranted a place for Conn on the staff moving forward.
Mike Reed - cornerbacks/special teams coord - Do I really need to say anything here? Keep.
Well, almost. We absolutely suck on special teams. To be fair, this is a problem that has long proceeded Reed’s special teams coordinator title and is more tied to the head coach than to Reed. Clemson very badly needs a new vision at special teams and I think this is another one of those “man in the mirror” moments for the head man. As much as I loathe Andre Powell, when he was brought in and given control of special teams, we saw an immediate improvement there. Dabo needs to do something similar, and that starts with giving someone, anyone, the freedom to make whatever changes and calls they need to on special teams.
Lemanski Hall - DEs - Our defensive ends have consistently underperformed/regressed over the last several years. I would argue that the issue here is even more pressing than the issue at WR, where we haven’t had elite talent over the last couple of seasons. We have continued to have elite talent along the defensive line and at defensive end, yet the production and development simply hasn’t been there.
I believe Clemson needs to go in another direction with its defensive ends coach. This one is tougher to replace. There aren’t many “defensive end” coaches out there. This is where I suggest just not replacing Hall With another DEs coach and instead filling in a 2nd OL coach.
Nick Eason - DTs - Eason is as close to Marion Hobby as we’re gonna get without Marion Hobby. I simply don’t think we could upgrade at this position and I think the interior DL has played well enough to warrant Eason’s return in 2024.
Strength and conditioning - This is tricky for me. I don’t have the knowledge to really critique here or offer up replacements. I do, however, wonder if its not time for Joey Batson to consider retirement and moving some youth into this position. The S&C coach is an extremely, extremely important facet of your staff. He will see your players more than the coaching staff will over the offseason and has a tremendous impact not just on their physical development, but on the development of their mental toughness and the culture you wish to instill in your players. I think Batson got way, way too much heat in the early 2010s from posters who are, by and large, no longer on the board and it was proven out that Batson is pretty damn good at his job once we began recruiting high level players. I don’t know that I’d be on board with forcing a change here, but I don’t know that Dabo shouldn’t give him a nudge towards retirement at this point.
Clemson football, in and of itself, isn’t doomed. There’s still a very solid framework in place for Clemson to very quickly right the ship and get back to winning at a high level. But Dabo has got to be able and willing to admit that much of his vision for staffing has proven out to be a failure. He’s got to be willing to adjust to the new era of college football. The longer it takes him to make these changes, the lower the program will fall until those changes are made.
I do not believe any staff changes will happen during the season. But I think it would be very, very difficult for Dabo to stand pat on this staff and maintain any sense of credibility with the fan base - even those not in the “1.5%.”
Dabo lauded his team over and over again after the NC State game for never quitting, and I got the feeling that he was more or less trying to speak that into existence. This team is dangerously close to completely missing out on the post-season, and when you’re used to winning championships and being the best team on the block, a season like this makes it really easy to go into business for yourself or just downright throw in the towel. I expect us to show up and play hard Saturday and probably keep it close with Notre Dame. But absolutely nothing about this team has led me to believe that we can make the plays we’d need to to win the game. When you look at what Miami was able to do to our defense late in the game on the ground, there’s no doubt Notre Dame will be able to do the same. I think Clemson fans need to be mentally prepared for a 5-7 or 6-6 finish. At this point, I’m really focused on just beating South Carolina.
Go Tigers!
