With former Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris back on Dabo Swinney’s staff – and another former Tiger offensive coordinator living virtually right next to Swinney – the Tigers’ head coach is experiencing a blast from the past in the present day.

“It’s like I’m living in the twilight zone,” Swinney said Friday as the Tigers opened fall camp. “I told him (Morris) that like last night because I’m still not used to him being here. We had a late meeting last night and were walking around. I mean, (former Clemson OC) Jeff Scott’s moved two doors down from me. Kath (Kathleen Swinney) is taking food to them, and Chad Morris is in the building, and I’m going, ‘What? I am living in the twilight zone around here.’ But it’s been great.”

Morris has returned to Tiger Town as a special assistant to football who will work with both the offense and defense, similar to the role that longtime college coach and former Duke head coach Ted Roof held on Swinney’s staff in 2021.

“He’s very cheap labor, if you will, for his expertise,” Swinney said of Morris. “Obviously he’s been a head coach and he’s been a very successful coordinator as well. So, he’ll be one of those guys like a lot of these programs have, he’ll be a guy that’ll kind of be a week ahead.”

Morris was Clemson’s offensive coordinator from 2011-14 before landing head coaching gigs at SMU and Arkansas. He spent the 2020 season as the offensive coordinator at Auburn before taking the head coaching job at Allen (Texas) High School.

After stepping down from his post at Allen after one season, Morris returned to the college ranks last year as a senior offensive analyst at South Florida under Scott.

Swinney is glad to have Morris back at Clemson for the first time since he left in 2014.

“Chad’s awesome. He’s been gone eight seasons. It’s crazy,” Swinney said. “The last time he had been at Clemson was the Sunday after the South Carolina game in 2014 is when he left to go to SMU, and he hadn’t been back here since. So obviously a lot has changed in eight years. A lot has changed. He hadn’t seen any of this building (Clemson Athletics Branding Institute) and obviously as a program we’ve been through a lot, etcetera, so it’s been great. And hopefully we can really help him kind of reset himself. It’s going to be a great situation.”

Swinney noted that Morris will be at some of Clemson’s games but not all of them, as he’s going to go see his son, Chandler, play at TCU as a redshirt sophomore.

“His son’s going to be the starting quarterback at TCU I’m assuming, so he’ll get a chance to be a dad but also be able to help Clemson as well, something he really wanted to do, and just stay involved and stay engaged,” Swinney said. “So, he’ll be a week ahead and study the upcoming opponent’s offense, upcoming opponent’s defense and just give another layer, another lens, add some value and maybe help in some high school relations. Wherever he wants to jump in and help, we’ll see. But it’s good that it worked out that he could come back.”

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