Garrett Riley uses experience in preparation for Austin Playoff opener

Garrett Riley has had success in the Playoff before.

Grayson Mann - Staff Writer - Tuesday, December 17 2024

CLEMSON – Between preparing for the playoffs, and the ongoing changes in the transfer portal, that can be a lot on anyone’s plate.

For Garrett Riley, there’s a little bit more to balance.

Riley recently welcomed the birth of his third child, juggling everything from the first CFP berth for the Tigers since 2020, and the responsibilities of a newborn.

Uniquely, Riley’s been here before. He compared to the newborn duties, such as changing a diaper, to like “riding a bike.”

“You never truly forget how to do it.”

Throughout the week, one of the consistent soundbites from the players has been about how new this experience truly is.

Very few left on this Clemson roster have played in the College Football Playoffs. Conversely, this staff holds plenty of it.

One of those members is offensive coordinator Riley, who became a national coordinator of interest after leading TCU to its first College Football Playoff appearance in program history. Riley can use his experience leading the 2022 Horned Frogs offense in a different kind of battle to give the Tigers new to the postseason an edge in preparation.

When it comes to that preparation, it is all about the details.

“When you have experience with something that, you're always going to draw from that and try to expose our players as much as possible with what I have learned,” Riley said. “And ultimately, what we've challenged our guys with is what Coach Swinney's challenged our team with as he's been in a lot of these as well. It will always come back to the fundamental things we're about. It really is, and as boring as that sounds, so we're really trying to hammer that home with our guys. They're going to be excited, and it's going to be a great environment, but at the end of the day, it's going to be about how we play and our mentality and all the things that's led us up to this point we just got to do at a high rate and have high execution with.”

With that execution in mind, Riley feels like Clemson hasn’t reached that top-level play quite yet. Against South Carolina and SMU, the Tigers had an opportunity to put both units away and come out of it with comfortable wins, but close contests have swayed with drastically different results.

Still, his offense finds itself in the postseason, where they still have an opportunity to play their best football. That kind of elevated play can lead to a deep run in the big dance, with a shot at the national championship in their grasp.

Having that kind of opportunity would only be exciting for Riley’s group.

“You want to be playing your best ball around playoff time, and now that's really the case for us,” Riley said. “Where this thing is headed is that you want to play your best ball towards the end of the season. So we feel like that's still ahead of us. We still feel like that's untapped. I just think you emphasize it, but at the same time, don't make it bigger than it is, right? There's got to be a fine line of our guys playing loose and having confidence and all those things that I think they have right now, but I do feel like we as a team feel like it's somebody's untapped potential for us to do that. Obviously, this would be a hell of a time to go do it.”

Riley described being discharged from the hospital and walking into practice as something out of “The Twilight Zone.” Heading into Austin, with over 100,000 roaring for the Longhorns, the playoff atmosphere may feel like a different dimension.

Riley’s been there and done that, and will now be leaned on to use that experience to help propel Clemson further into the big dance.