How college football coaching carousel impacts Clemson-Alabama game
The college football coaching carousel is winding down and it appears that Clemson will once again keep most, if not all, of its staff intact.
The same cannot be said for Alabama as the Crimson Tide is dealing with a coordinator taking another job prior to the start of the College Football Playoff for the third time in three years.
Former Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart accepted the Georgia head coaching job in December of 2015 and split his time over the next several weeks.
Former Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin accepted the Florida Atlantic job in December of 2016 and was trying to split time before being relieved of his duties with Alabama prior to the national title game against Clemson.
Last week Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt was hired as the head coach at Tennessee and will be splitting time between working with the Crimson Tide and recruiting and putting his staff in place in Knoxville over the next several weeks.
“He's going to go do some things to get his program started at Tennessee. When we're ready to practice, he'll be back with us, be a part of the playoff,” Nick Saban said last week in Atlanta. “I really appreciate the fact that Kirby did a great job of doing that a couple years ago when he had an opportunity. I think it shows a lot of respect for the players on our team who worked hard to help us all have success this season.”
Saban admitted that the coaching changes can be tough on a team but he is hopeful that Pruitt will be able to handle it without it being much of a distraction.
“I think each individual handles a circumstance like this relative to how they can stay focused on two things,” he said. “Most of the really good coaches that have great competitive character are always going to do what's best for the players... I'm sure Jeremy will do a good job of that this year.”
Saban said having so many different coordinator changes in a three-year period is tough. But he is happy for the coaches that are able to move up and take over their own program and doesn’t worry about how it might hurt Alabama.
“I think immediately there is some effect and impact when you have change, but it also creates an opportunity to bring in new enthusiasm, new ideas, new people. You just have to keep constantly trying to make sure that the people that you're hiring are quality people who are going to add something in a positive way to the organization,” Saban said. “I think it's wonderful, and I try to help and promote our coaches so they have an opportunity to go and become head coaches. We like to see guys get promoted.”
Clemson had all three of its coordinators, Brent Venables, Tony Elliott and Jeff Scott, mentioned as head coaching candidates.
Venables was rumored to be in play at Arkansas, Mississippi State and Tennessee. Elliott was said to be a candidate at UCF. And Scott was mentioned as a candidate at South Alabama.
All of those jobs have been filled- none with Clemson assistants.
“You never know what’s true and what’s not, so you can’t just believe everything you see,” linebacker Kendall Joseph said. “We’re not paying attention to it. We’re not worried about it. We know where his loyalty stands, and if it changes we would definitely know before everybody else knew because that’s the kind of guy he is. It’s not really something we focus on.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 12:11 PM with the headline "How college football coaching carousel impacts Clemson-Alabama game."