Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney named the successor for Joey Batson as strength and conditioning coach following the 2025 season.

Swinney said during his weekly radio show on Monday night that Dennis Love will replace Batson as Clemson Football’s strength and conditioning coach.

Love returned to Clemson in January 2022 as Batson’s right-hand man. Batson is set to retire following the 2025 season.

“I’m really excited about Dennis Love,” Swinney said. “And honestly, Joey was the one that kind of, he hand-picked Dennis. Dennis, if you ask our players, people come back from all over to train with D-Love. They love Dennis, and Dennis has great experience. He’s been all over. But Dennis, he was leaving. He had the Minnesota Vikings head job. And he had been there. He knew them, but they wanted him to come be their head strength coach, and Joey knew he had some health things he was dealing with.

“So we made the decision back in the summer, hey, it was time, and so Dennis turned down that job – there’s not many people that’ll turn down an NFL head strength job. But he turned that job down because his dream has been to be the guy here at Clemson.”

Before returning to Clemson as an assistant football strength and conditioning coach, Love was an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Auburn for the 2021 season after a four-year stint as the associate director of football strength & conditioning at Purdue from 2017-20. He spent the 2015-16 seasons as an assistant strength & conditioning coach with the Denver Broncos, helping the franchise to victory in Super Bowl 50.

“We’re super excited about him stepping into that role in January,” Swinney added. “But just forever grateful to Coach B.”

Love spent 11 years at Clemson from 2004-14, including the final four as the director of Olympic sports strength & conditioning.

During his time as director, he oversaw the strength & conditioning for 14 Olympic sports while serving as the head strength coach for the baseball, men’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams. In his first season working with the baseball program in 2010, Clemson advanced to the College World Series and finished third nationally in the final polls.

During his time in Denver, he oversaw the Broncos’ quarterback annual performance training, working with Peyton Manning in his final season, and he helped guide Super Bowl MVP Von Miller and cornerback Chris Harris to first- and second-team All-Pro selections.

–Clemson Athletic Communications contributed to this story