ESPN analyzes Dabo Swinney making OC change, bringing in Garrett Riley |
Clemson is set to announce Friday afternoon the hiring of Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley as offensive coordinator from the Playoff runner-ups TCU.
That meant the Tigers moved on from former Clemson quarterback and longtime assistant Brandon Streeter after one full season calling the plays. ESPN weighed in on both aspects for reaction. "It's hard to say Streeter was to blame for Clemson's offensive issues in 2022. The truth is, in his first year as coordinator, Streeter actually steered the offense to markedly better numbers than 2021," ESPN's David Hale said. "But Streeter was also largely a continuation of Clemson's past. He may not have been responsible for the downturn, but it seemed clear he wasn't going to steer things in a new -- and needed -- direction. Instead, Swinney appears to have found someone in Riley who can add some serious spice to an offense that was, from an X's and O's standpoint, pretty vanilla. Vanilla worked with Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson and a host of NFL backs and receivers. Without them, vanilla has just looked ... bland." What the Tigers get in Riley is a young coach who's been successful in his college stops to this point, from Division III Augustana to TCU. "In his first season in 2020 (at SMU), with Shane Buechele at QB, the Mustangs averaged 38.6 points per game, 15th nationally," ESPN's Dave Wilson said. "The next year, with Oklahoma transfer Tanner Mordecai at QB, the offense ranked 10th, led the AAC in passing and averaged 38.4 ppg. Then, in his first year at TCU, he helped turn Duggan, a four-year starter who had never thrown for more than 2,100 yards or 16 TDs in a season, into a Heisman runner-up who had 3,698 yards and 32 TDs. Riley is a patient playcaller who isn't all flash, but instead blends a power running attack -- Kendre Miller ran for more than 1,200 yards between the tackles this season -- with a simplified Air Raid passing scheme to wear defenses down and pop big plays. "Riley has already worked wonders in just three seasons as a coordinator." Hale also speculated at the perspective from Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney in this move. "It's hard to know exactly what Swinney's mindset is. He bristled at even the slightest criticisms last offseason when outsiders suggested his promotion of two in-house candidates to playcaller jobs -- Streeter and Wes Goodwin -- might've been too myopic," Hale said. "He spent nearly all of 2022 praising Uiagalelei, too, even lambasting the media for doubting the QB -- then benched Uiagalelei three times during the season and admitted, after the ACC championship game, he'd been hoping Klubnik would take over for weeks. Now he's finally backtracked on his insistence that Streeter was the right man for the OC job, and he's gone out to land as big a fish as there is in the coordinator ranks. "Perhaps the real takeaway here is Swinney has a formula he believes in, but he's also smart enough to know when something isn't working. What remains to be seen, however, is whether this is the last of the staff changes and, perhaps more importantly, if he shifts his perspective on the transfer portal to address some roster limitations, too." So, if the numbers were all up... and Clemson now has a better QB situation... and Dabo is the guy who *always* prioritizes culture & loyalty... Why make this change now? And it's not that Clemson's offensive talent is bad. It's just not Lawrence/Higgins/Etienne. You with with mismatches on talent or scheme (or both) and Clemson hasn't had those edges enough the past two years. There are still tons of big questions despite what seems like a home-run hire in Riley. For 1... Klubnik has a ton of talent, but there's a reason it took until the ACCCG to get real playing time. He wasn't consistent in practice & didn't perform in (limited) game reps. In the meantime, I think this move -- and in particular a move to an OC who's shown he can win big with lesser talent -- is an understanding that scheme is easier to fix than the talent issue in the near term & that philosophical change was more important than personnel change. W/Dabo's comments re: Klubnik after the ACCCG ("we thought he'd take the job during ND game") and this move, he's clearly been more calculating than he let on publicly... but I still wonder how deeply he'll embrace change. Still, this was an intriguing step toward something new.
I don't think production or loyalty were the driving factors here. I think it was simply a need for change.
And that was Streeter's issue: He was more of the same.
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