This ESPN analyst recently gave his thoughts on Clemson’s hiring of its new offensive coordinator, Garrett Riley.

Tom Luginbill weighed in on Swinney firing Brandon Streeter after just one season as the Tigers’ OC and replacing him with Riley, who of course joined Swinney’s staff after spending last season as the play-caller at TCU where he won the 2022 Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach.

“It’s the best, toughest decision that Dabo Swinney has probably had to make as the head coach at Clemson because he’s been so staunchly loyal,” Luginbill said recently on the Crain & Company show. “He has loved the ability to groom and develop young coaches and then provide them their opportunity, and quite honestly it’s worked for just about everybody on the staff, except for this one instance of Brandon Streeter. And I feel for Brandon a little bit because he happened to become the offensive coordinator when they were no longer generational at quarterback. We’ve seen how mere mortal Tony Elliott’s become. We saw how mere mortal Jeff Scott became, OK. This is about quarterback play.

“So, I love the fit. I love that they’re going to get into a lot of the guard, tackle, counter game with the screen stuff that comes off of it. Much more up tempo, pressure people. Not get away from the run game, because I think ultimately that’s the beauty of the Lincoln Riley/Garrett Riley, I can name a bunch of other guys that have gone this route too with their version of the air raid – it’s actually based upon the run game, and then everything else comes off of that. So, fantastic hire. I know it was a hard decision for Dabo.”

Riley will have a young gun under center to work with in rising sophomore Cade Klubnik, who took over as the Tigers’ starting quarterback for the Orange Bowl following a stellar performance in the ACC Championship Game victory over North Carolina.

As for DJ Uiagalelei, who transferred to Oregon State this offseason after losing the starting job to Klubnik, Luginbill believes Swinney cost the Tigers a spot in the playoff last season by sticking with Uiagalelei as the starter for too long.

“I said this about D.J. Uiagalelei – I felt Dabo Swinney cost his football team a College Football Playoff berth with his loyalty to DJ,” Luginbill said. “And at the end of the day, I love that, but you’ve also got 130 other guys you’ve got to be loyal to, and it’s not just about one guy. I think if anything, he may have learned off of the DJ situation is he can’t allow this to continue to happen and is gonna have to make some tough decisions, and he made a really good one here.”

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