The Tigers made a massive change on offense after the inconsistencies in 2022 by hiring Garrett Riley to be the offensive coordinator. The brother of Lincoln Riley, he’s coming off of a dominant season with the TCU Horned Frogs where he helped lead that offense to the College Football Playoff.

All signs point to a head coaching future for Riley, and he likely could’ve done that instead of coming to Clemson, but he made the choice to compete for a title in Tiger Town. Now that he’s been with the program for a while now, he discussed what it’s been like so far with the Tigers at the 2023 Clemson Media Outing.

”Everything’s been great, it really has,” Riley said. “We’ve got players that we’re excited about, players that have played together a lot. We’ve got a great deal of continuity, really on our whole team so that’s exciting, then the staff has been unbelievable, buy-in has been great…it’s been awesome for me to actually experience.”

Building an offense from the ground up in Clemson, the coaches buying in is just as important as the players and the confidence Dabo Swinney has in Riley’s scheme is palpable. It’s no coincidence considering TCU averaged 38.8 points last year and Riley’s made an exponential rise since starting his coaching career at the high school level in 2011.

Last season’s offense wasn’t bad by any means, but it wasn’t the dominant, flashy offenses Tigers fans got used to with Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence at the helm. Cade Klubnik enters the fold after getting experience as a freshman and Riley discussed how Clemson can take a big step on offense.

”I think our whole approach is you’ve got to be physical. We’re not going to lose that,” Riley said. We’re going to be a physical team but I just think the consistency in what we do. It doesn’t have to be really complicated. We expect to have great players here at Clemson and I think it’s exciting just to be simple, attack mode and just let our guys play and be free.”

Lethal simplicity feels like the mantra for Riley’s scheme and it’s a perfect storm when trying to teach a scheme in the first year coaching a new team. With the abundance of talent that Clemson has, that mindset can create opportunities for players like Klubnik, running back Will Shipley, wide receiver Antonio Williams and more. Once the chemistry clicks on all cylinders, Riley can work his magic and help the Tigers be a prolific offense again.