In January, Clemson made a huge coaching splash when the Tigers landed former TCU offensive coordinator and 2022 Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley to replace Brandon Streeter as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator.
Appearing on Gramlich & Mac Lain with Kelly Gramlich and Eric Mac Lain, Clemson athletic director Graham Neff discussed the Riley hire and went into some detail on the process of bringing in Riley and how that came about.
“Certainly that change from a coordinator standpoint, driven by Coach (Swinney), but he and I had talked on it off and on over the end of the season into there into mid-January when the transition transpired,” Neff said. “A lot of the sequencing or the timing was born out of respect and doing it the right way for Brandon Streeter, who’s an awesome Clemson man and family, was a heck of a player here, let alone a heck of a coach. So, wanted to make sure that there was steps and the conversations along the way were really, really sensitive to that. So, that was certainly one of the drivers. And listen – well written and so much a part of the success of Clemson Football and how Coach Swinney has led is the culture of the program and stack continuity and consistency, consistency in the locker room, all of that…
“So, a change like this from a coordinator position was significant on so many levels. So working through that where it was just a really, really tight circle, and it might not even have been a circle, it might have been a line with Dabo and I. It was really cool to be able to support Dabo in that consideration or that opportunity from what my role was and is, but then also to be really prudent about how it went down.”
Neff added that hiring Riley isn’t something that was simply done on a whim.
“So this change, while it feels like it came out of left field and it was done before it was done, that was born out of days, months, years worth of relationships, of process, of understanding how things work at Clemson, how things need to work in the football facility and with staff, and then you get successes of how things like that can work out,” he said.
“But incredibly pleased of sure, how that transpired, but obviously what Garrett’s going to bring to the program, to the offense and a little bit of even what that change means.”
One of the top young assistants in the sport, Riley won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach last season in helping the Horned Frogs reach the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.
Riley’s offense finished ninth nationally in scoring (38.8 points per game). TCU also ranked 27th in total offense (455 yards per game), 31st in rushing (193.3) and 39th in passing (26.17). Under Riley’s tutelage, TCU quarterback Max Duggan also won the Davey O’Brien Award as college football’s top signal caller.
You can watch Neff talk more about the Riley hire and the message it sends throughout college football, beginning around the 26:40 mark of the following video:
We are excited to announce our second annual Dear Old Clemson event for the freshmen football class. Come out on July 22 at 10 AM at the indoor football facility for a meet and greet autograph session with the scholarship freshmen from the 2023 class. Clemson coordinators Garrett Riley and Wes Goodwin will be attendance and speak at the event.
Get your tickets today at Dear Old Clemson.
