Dabo Swinney, Clemson Tabbed as One of Nations Biggest Winners In Coaching Carousel

Dabo Swinney’s offseason move to bring in Garrett Riley as the Tigers’ new offensive coordinator is still being lauded by the national media.

247Sports Brandon Marcello recently tabbed Clemson as one the biggest winners in the offseason coaching carousel.

Dabo Swinney can still surprise us from time to time, going against the grain and bucking our perceptions of the good ol’ boy in orange and purple.

Swinney deftly and quietly replaced one of his own disciples, Brandon Streeter, after only one season as play-caller and replaced him with an outsider: TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, the architect of the flash-and-power offense of the national runner-up Horned Frogs. Swinney had made it a habit of replacing staffers with internal hires, most notably replacing both departing coordinators Tony Elliott and Brent Venables (now head coaches) with Streeter and analyst Wes Goodwin in 2022. Was Swinney insulating himself as the college, NIL and ACC landscapes shift wildly amid the winds of change? Were the championship days of Clemson blending into the horizon? Swinney swung back at detractors at press conferences and then proved perceptions wrong when he fired his right-hand man and hired the hottest coordinator in the sport.