Dabo Swinney made Clemson football what it is today, but he couldn’t have done it without Brent Venables.
Every Clemson fan remembers the 2012 Orange Bowl. As much as Tiger fans would love to forget it, that game turned out to be a blessing, because that was the game which showed Dabo Swinney how badly he needed an elite defensive coordinator.
Geno Smith and West Virginia tore Clemson’s defense to shreds in a 70-33 romp. Getting your head handed to you on a platter in a prestigious bowl game in front of a national TV audience will cause introspection and force a reconsideration of internal methods. Dabo was still learning how to run a program, but he had already hired Chad Morris as his offensive coordinator in 2011. Now he needed to address the other side of the ball.
Dabo Swinney wasn’t the smartest guy in the room when he came to Clemson. His evolution into a superstar head coach was based on an awareness of that reality. Dabo realized — earlier and better than most of his peers in the business — that he had to surround himself with the best people, the best minds, if his own operation was going to succeed. Dabo learned how to be a CEO head coach, in which delegating responsibility to talented assistants would enable his career, and Clemson’s fortunes, to rise.
Clemson became a juggernaut thanks to great quarterbacks such as Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, and to Venables’ defenses. Clemson found different ways to win, sometimes relying on offense, other times relying on defense. Clemson’s defense was certainly the pillar of this 2021 team. The Tigers memorably shut out Ohio State in the 2016 season’s College Football Playoff semifinals. Venables ran rings around Alabama’s coaching staff two years later in the 2018 season’s playoff championship rematch. The 2017 Clemson defense held the team together in the Kelly Bryant season when the Tigers’ offense took a noticeable step back. Brent Venables made this Clemson era what it was.
Now, with Venables expected to go to Oklahoma to become the Sooners’ new head coach after Lincoln Riley’s departure, Dabo — who lost assistant Jeff Scott to South Florida and watched his 2021 offense suffer — must now replace his most important hire at Clemson.
2022 is going to be interesting: That’s the understatement of the year. Other ACC fans, especially North Carolina State and Wake Forest in the Atlantic, are praying Clemson is losing its edge.
We will get to see what Dabo Swinney is made of. It’s going to be fun, one way or the other.
