Can Garrett Riley Save Clemson’s Offense?
Unless you’re a die-hard college football fan, I’m sure you’re not keeping up with offensive coordinator hires. You also might not know until now that the man I’m about to talk about, Garrett Riley, is the brother of USC head coach, Lincoln Riley. If you’re not familiar, it’s time to start because the younger Riley brother is now tasked with trying to save Clemson’s offense.
Riley, 33, spent this past season with TCU. One year on the job and Riley helps guide TCU to their first ever appearance in the CFB playoff. The Horned frogs sported the 9th highest scoring offense while averaging 38.8 points per game for the 2022 season. Max Duggan sported career highs in everything after initially entering the season as the backup. Oh, also add in the Broyles Award which goes towards recognizing the top assistant in the sport. The work here speaks for itself.
Riley will now get the keys to drive the Clemson offense. You can kinda piece this chart right here into something that makes sense. It’s called Trevor Lawrence left and Tony Elliott became the offensive coordinator. The wide receiver talent also vanished.
Dabo Swinney had to make changes and he knew it. Credit to him for recognizing it and finding the right outside hire. It’s something the local media has been blasting him for. He just won’t give them the satisfaction because Dabo knows he’s damn good at what he does.
“Well, that’s what I get paid to do. All I can tell you is I’m gonna do my job. And if it comes a time where people don’t like how I do my job, then they can hire somebody else. But until then I ain’t ever gonna make decisions based on what other people want me to do. I can tell you that.
If I did that, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you tonight. And the reality is, we’re a 10-2 football team playing for our league title and one of the most consistent teams in the country.
Every year is different. Nobody’s got their head in the sand. We’ve gotta get better in a lot of areas. But we know that. But if we wanna fire the head coach and fire the staff every year if we don’t make the playoff, then you’re going to have a new head coach here very often. And you’re gonna have a new staff here every year. Because that ain’t gonna happen a lot. There’s only four teams,” – via On3 Sports
Cade Klubnik should be throwing a party right now. He’s the biggest winner out of all of this. If Clemson is going to get back into the playoff, it starts with the Klubnik and Riley pairing. Miami and Florida State are rapidly improving. UNC might be better a year from now with another year under Drake Maye’s belt. The pressure is on and Dabo realized it. The days of just hiring from within to fill significant coordinator jobs may be over at Clemson. Young hot hires like Garrett Riley will be tasked with saving Clemson’s offense. Time will tell if Riley can do the same thing with the Tigers that he just did for Max Duggan.
