This national analyst recently revealed his list of college football’s most intriguing assistant coaches in 2023.

FOX Sports’ RJ Young tabbed Garrett Riley among those assistants, as Riley heads into his first season as Clemson’s offensive coordinator after spending last season as the play caller at TCU – where, at just 33 years old, he won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant in helping the Horned Frogs reach the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.

“The short-but-punchy fact is Garrett Riley did more at Texas Christian than Clemson did with considerably less in 2022,” Young said on The Number One College Football Show. “… Texas Christian, a small private Christian school in North Texas, averaged 38.8 points per game — that was ninth best in the country last year — gave up 29 a game — that was 91st out of 131 teams in the country — and finished as the national title runners-up in 2022 while Clemson averaged just 33.2 points per game. That’s almost a touchdown fewer than the TCU Horned Frogs, my goodness.

“The man who coordinated Texas Christian’s offense to those numbers, Riley, now at Clemson. But he’s got Cade Klubnik and he’s got Will Shipley in the backfield. That means he’s got the talent to produce a 3,000-yard passer and a 1,000-yard rusher in the same year and return the Tigers to averaging 40 a game, which – I had to really look at this hard – is the same number of points that Michigan averaged in 2022.”

The other names on Young’s list of the most intriguing assistant coaches in 2023 are TCU offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, Oklahoma defensive coordinator Ted Roof, Alabama offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and Southern Cal defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

Young weighed in on which of those coordinators he sees coaching in the College Football Playoff first at his current school, and Young pegged Riley as the one with the best chance to make the CFP at his present post.

Young said he believes Riley “returns to the College Football Playoff before his big brother Lincoln, especially with the Trojans headed to a loaded Big Ten in a year’s time.”

“I’m inclined to say, given that Clemson has fielded a top-15 scoring defense in four out of the last seven years and still managed to rank No. 22 in the country its first year post-Brent Venables, Garrett Riley will find a way to get Clemson an extra seven points per game and put the Tigers back to 40 points per game on average in 2023,” Young said.

“I’m also inclined to say that that machine in Clemson, South Carolina, has more untapped potential under that hood, and Riley’s going to find it.”

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.