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I do see what Dabo is doing with his hires
Dec 15, 2021, 1:44 PM
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Long analysis done short, Dabo seems to be trying to insulate Clemson culture from the crazy.
It's a full-on zoo out there right now. NIL's, coaching changes, conference changes. Just a sea of uncertainty and rapid change.
But over here, Dabo's certainly not chasing trends. He's trying to put the emphasis one place: CLEMSON. Period. He wants that to be the only name that matters. Coaches come and go, but the Clemson system is solid, development-based, consistent. You wanna chase the bucks, go chase the bucks. You wanna belong to a system that re-recruits yearly and can cut you or run you off at any time, go for it. The SEC awaits you. He clearly isn't interested in relying on names anymore: he's obviously banking now on Clemson culture, Clemson continuity, Clemson stability.
So you see his thought process: by growing his own staff in-house, from GA's/analysts to position coaches to coordinators, essentially what you're doing is buying extra years from those coaches because they are not "names" yet. In contrast a big-name coach gets huge bucks...and will then usually turn around and better-deal you the next year if he has a good year, so with a big-name guy you pay for your (potential) initial success with instability later.
If these from-within hires are successful, Dabo's essentially developed a way to overcome instability caused by yearly coaching switches. In the future departures will matter a lot less for exactly the same reason it matters a lot less for Alabama: because we'll have proven we overcome it.
In the short term it's obviously costing us. Recruits bolted on us this transition, especially defensive recruits. The Venables name was huge. And promoting coordinators who are so unproven is always a risk. But if it works, in the long run, Dabo and Clemson will have established that the frenzied instability engulfing the rest of college football does not apply to us, and we'll still be Clemson, driving in our lane, doing our own thing our own way.
Will it work? I dunno. I think a lot of that has to do with how the new coordinators turn out. One thing I noted: our new coordinators are significantly cheaper than the guys they replaced, so that frees up a lot of cheddar for analysts. Unlike Saban, we don't need to run a coaching rehab clinic for ex-head-coaches looking to resurrect their careers...what we need, especially with position coaches and coordinators so young, are gurus...guys who have been around the block, have x's and o's sophistication, and the ability to tutor and develop these younger and less-experienced coordinators. I really like the idea of bringing, say, David Cutcliffe on staff to mentor Streeter. Combine Streeter's relative youth, hunger, and energy with Cutcliff's knowledge base and experience, and I feel just way better about Streeter's chances of being successful.
My suspicion is, this is Dabo's approach going forwards. Grow his coaches in-house, backstop them with external analysts, insulate Clemson from turnover while at the same time limiting it. I think it's how he intends to get through not just this year's coaching changes, but with future ones as well.
We'll see how it works. As usual, with Dabo, it's not how everyone else is doing it. Which means it may well be successful.
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