Garrett Riley has spent his career around some of college football’s brightest minds both inside and outside of his own family.

He’s picked most of those brains to formulate his offense, which he’s set to run at Clemson after being hired as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator last month. Riley, who helped TCU to the No. 9 scoring offense in the country this past season, has described his offense as fast and aggressive.

As for what it will look like, it’s a mixture of bits and pieces from many coaches he’s been influenced by at every stop along the way. The first was in Lubbock, Texas, where Riley was a quarterback in the late Mike Leach’s air-raid system at Texas Tech in the late 2000s. 

“Coach Leach is probably the whole reason why I wanted to coach,” Riley said earlier this month. “I was very lucky to be at Texas Tech at that point in time. It was just a period of time when he was very cutting edge with what they were doing and the run they went on at Texas Tech.”

Riley said he also learned under Leach that it’s OK to kick conventional wisdom.

“I think just more than anything the way he was an out-of-the-box thinker and did things his way was very appealing to me to kind of see a different style,” Riley said. “That’s what piqued my interest there as a college student and a young quarterback.”

After a couple of high-school coaching stops in Texas and Illinois, Riley got his college coaching career started in 2013 as a graduate assistant at East Carolina, where his older brother, Lincoln, was already on staff as then-ECU coach Ruffin McNeil’s offensive coordinator. The younger Riley said being on McNeil’s staff is when he first started to learn the importance of having a balanced offense.

“Every stop I’ve been on, you try to take away pieces from those experiences,” Riley said. “I certainly did in the two years that I was with (Lincoln) at East Carolina when we were there together. Did some nice things under Coach McNeil, who’s been a huge mentor for me.”

Of course, Lincoln has gone on to become one of the sport’s brightest young coaches with a reputation for being a quarterback whisperer. At 39 years old, Lincoln just finished his first season as Southern California’s head coach after a successful five-year stint at Oklahoma, where three of his quarterbacks (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts) were Heisman Trophy finalists. Mayfield and Murray along with Caleb Williams, Riley’s quarterback at USC, won it.

That kind of quarterback mentoring seemingly runs in the family. Garrett coached his first Heisman finalist this past season in Max Duggan, who came in second in the voting. Duggan won the Davey O’Brien Award as college football’s best quarterback as consolation.

Now Garrett will work with Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, a former five-star prospect who ended his true freshman season as the Tigers’ starter. Garrett has said he’s prepared to tailor his offense to his personnel at Clemson.

With the number of influences he’s had to help shape it, that shouldn’t be a problem.

“Specifically with him, of course I’ve taken some pieces away from that experience,” Garrett said, referring to his brother’s offense. “But I certainly have from all the other coaches I’ve been around, too.”

Dear Old Clemson has added the Tiger Sack Pack to our online store.  Save by getting the Two Pack of signed cards from two of the nation’s top defensive ends, Myles Murphy and Xavier Thomas.

Now there is a new way you can support Clemson student-athletes. Purchase collectibles from Dear Old Clemson and the proceeds with go to support Clemson student-athletes. 

Dear Old Clemson is doing NIL the ‘Clemson way’, but we need your help to make sure we build a sustainable, repeatable model that will help keep Clemson competitive with the other top programs around the nation.

Dabo Swinney: “We need your assistance more than ever to provide meaningful NIL opportunities. Tiger Impact, Dear Old Clemson and other collectives allow student-athletes to utilize their voice and platform to maximize their NIL opportunities and strengthen their impact in the community.”

Graham Neff:
“Tiger Impact, Dear Old Clemson and other collectives need your support to help provide meaningful NIL opportunities for our student athletes. We are doing things the right way, the Clemson way with integrity as a non-negotiable and we fully support the mission of these groups.”

Join the Tiger Club or Lady Tiger Club to help these great student-athletes and help the Tigers compete at the highest level!