
Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney
today announced the full coaching staff for his first full season. As you may have guessed, I'm less than thrilled.
Clemson Football Staff Assignments for 2009 Season
Head Coach: Dabo Swinney
Offensive Assistants
Billy Napier - Offensive Coordinator, Quarterbacks
Danny Pearman - Assistant Head Coach, Tackles, Tight Ends
Andre' Powell - Running Backs, Special Teams Coordinator
Brad Scott - Associate Head Coach, Offensive Guards and Centers
Jeff Scott - Wide Receivers
Defensive Assistants
David Blackwell - Defensive Tackles
Charlie Harbison - Co-Defensive Coordinator, Defensive Backs
Chris Rumph - Defensive Ends
Kevin Steele - Defensive Coordinator, Inside Linebackers
In all honesty the defensive staff looks pretty solid. No complaints from me there. I thought Blackwell did an outstanding job in the Gator bowl against a great offense with absolutely zero assistance from our own offense. Everything I've seen about Steele is that he's a great coordinator and we should expect a hard-nosed, dominating defense out of him, so I'm really looking forward to that.
However, that's where the positives stop. First of all, do you notice something missing from that list? Here's a clue, it's something other than offense that we've sucked at for the last two decades... Special Teams. That's right, we still don't have a dedicated special teams coordinator. Instead we have a running backs coach who also, in his spare time, coaches special teams. That's not a good start.
The next obvious characteristic of the list is the lack of experience or success on the offensive side of the ball. We went with a gamble, an unknown, a risky choice for head coach and so rather than go out and hire an experienced veteran of an offensive coordinator, he decided to go with a gamble, an unknown, a risky Billy Napier. The same guy that called the plays for the last seven games, where our offense completely crumbled when faced with a halfway decent defense. Look at the Georgia Tech game, the Florida State game, the Virginia game, and finally the Nebraska game: what stood out as absolutely pathetic? Our offensive playcalling. Who was responsible? Napier. So he gets the job as Offensive Coordinator... excuse me for not pumping sunshine on this one, but I'm simply not buying the "but it was Bowden's offense" excuse. Napier had plenty of time to install new plays and formations and he just didn't get it done.
To be fair, we did see glimmers of hope with Napier at the head of the offense. The first half of the South Carolina game was filled with things we never saw from Bowden: power running with fullback lead-blocking, passing upfield on first and second down, quick hitting vertical pass plays like slants and posts, etc. Those things played to our offense's strengths (speed, runningbacks) and compensated for our weaknesses (linemen, quarterbacks.) For a minute there it looked like we were in for a complete offensive turnaround. Unfortunately, Napier didn't seem to learn the lesson of how effective those things were and they disappeared just as quickly as they had arrived. By the second half of the South Carolina game, we were back to our tunnel screen and double reverse loving ways, and that carried on to our Gator Bowl debacle against Nebraska. The Fun 'n Punt® offense was alive and well, with expected results.
Now, I should mention here that Swinney did mention in the press conference that there were going to be some offensive strategy changes in the off-season:
“Billy and I have worked together for four of the last five years,” said Swinney. “We have a good working relationship and the same philosophy, the same approach. We will have some changes next year. We will basically be a spread formation team. What will be different next year is that we will use the quarterback more in the running game. Billy is one of the fine young coaches in the nation. He will be a head coach some day.”
Call me a pessimist, but I just don't see much promise in this statement. I just don't see us coming out next year and running an Urban Meyer style shotgun option/veer and devastating the ACC. I wish we would, but something tells me it'll just be more of the same, except next year on third and long we'll have a scrambling quarterback who won't get sacked, but will run for 8 yards when we need 15. Yay.
Finally, it looks as if Swinney has caved to fan pressure about Brad Scott and taken the full responsibility of the offensive line away from him. Now he is only coaching guards and centers but as a consolation prize his son gets to move up to the big times in college football and coach the Wide Receivers. Hey, who knows, in just a few years he could be a head coach.
Labels: Clemson, coaches, football