Dabo Swinney reacts to former Clemson assistants earning head coaching jobs

It does not appear that Clemson will lose any coordinators off this year’s staff, but Dabo Swinney had two former assistants who worked with him at Clemson land head coaching jobs in the past couple of weeks.

Former Tigers offensive coordinator Chad Morris was named the head coach at Arkansas on Dec. 6 after serving as the head coach at SMU from 2015-17.

Morris was the offensive coordinator at Clemson from 2011-14 and helped the Tigers enjoy record-breaking success.

He also spent a year at Tulsa in 2010 after having a successful career as a high school coach in Texas.

“I’ve talked to him several times before he got the job and once he got it, just tickled to death for him,” Swinney said. “I think it’s a good fit for him because I think if you’re going to be successful at Arkansas, you probably need to have some Texas ties. And I think he’s at a place that’s going to have the resources and the commitment to go try to compete at the highest level.”

Morris had a 14-22 record during three seasons at SMU but had the program headed in the right direction.

SMU went 1-11 the year before he arrived before going 2-10 his first year, 5-7 in 2016 and 7-5 this past year.

“He’ll put a good staff together and they’ll go recruit. At the end of the day, you’ve gotta go recruit. I think they did that at SMU. You can be a great coach… You better go recruit some players. It’s all about the players,” Swinney said.

Billy Napier, who worked at Clemson from 2003-04 and 2006-10, was named the head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette last Friday.

Napier also coached at South Carolina State, Colorado State and Alabama before spending this past season as the offensive coordinator at Arizona State.

“Really happy for him. I’ve got two branches now,” Swinney said of his coaching tree. “I’m proud of Billy. Man, he did a great job for us and he’s a bright young coach.”

This story was originally published December 18, 2017 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Dabo Swinney reacts to former Clemson assistants earning head coaching jobs."