Experience guides Venables’ rebuild at Clemson

When Brent Venables gets his fourth season as Clemson defensive coordinator started Tuesday with the opening of the Tigers’ fall camp, it’ll be the first time he walks onto those practice fields without Vic Beasley, the school’s all-time sack leader and first-round NFL Draft pick, around.

Stephone Anthony, another first-round selection, won’t be lining up at linebacker. Defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, who was a major piece to Clemson’s success the last few years, won’t be there to fill gaps.

“When you lose leadership and playmaking, that’s the challenge,” Venables said. “It’s not an easy challenge. It’s all relative to the next season and the matchups and what the other teams bring to the table. That’s why every season is a little bit different that way. You write your own book and tell your own story.”

In total, eight starters — and seven of the top 10 tacklers — from the nation’s top-ranked defense of 2014 are gone, along with nearly 600 tackles and more than 30 sacks. It’s an enormous amount of production to replace, and it leaves Venables with a still talented but less proven unit.

That many personnel losses might force some defensive coordinators to change the system or scheme, but not at Clemson, and most certainly not with Venables.

“I don’t think you change what you do,” Clemson defensive tackles coach Dan Brooks said. “I know coach (Venables) very much believes in our scheme. Sure, different guys are different. You’re not going to change your scheme. I think that would really cramp coach (Venables) if you said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to change what we’re doing.’”

Venables’ resume is a huge reason why the defense isn’t concerned about the personnel overhaul. In 19 years of coaching, he’s never been on a losing team. Venables’ defenses at Oklahoma, where he served as a DC from 1999-2011, routinely faced some of the top offensive minds in college football, yet he excelled in several seasons — like 2003 when had the No. 1 defense in the country, and in 2008, when OU ranked in the top three in the Big 12 in nearly every category after facing 11 top-50 offenses.

“The reason I hired Brent was his experience at Oklahoma for 13 years of not only playing and preparing for what I want to do all the time and going against some of the best quarterbacks in college football history that he’d seen over those 13 years, but also, more importantly, preparing your defense in practice every day,” Clemson coach Swinney said. “He saw everything at Oklahoma. That was one of the things that I was intrigued with. He had Mike Leach as an offensive coordinator. … Kevin Sumlin, all those guys went through there. He had a good understanding of how to get a defense ready regardless of what the offense is doing.”

Even though Venables understands massive roster turnover happens to every team, his philosophy hasn’t wavered at Clemson. A major key is getting players to believe in his system early in their careers.

“Maybe that’s the art of coaching, getting them to buy in sooner rather than later,” said Venables, who received a $475,000 raise in the offseason to increase his annual salary to $1.35 million. “The good thing about here is there’s already a culture of success here. We recruit good kids.”

That culture didn’t exist on that side of the ball before he arrived at Clemson. The program hit a low point when it gave up 70 points to West Virginia in the 2012 Orange Bowl, and Swinney was tired of hearing about how the Tigers could never have a successful defense while using a fast-paced offense. Kevin Steele was out as DC and Venables was brought in to make the Tigers respectable again. Swinney says he doesn’t get the same questions anymore about his defense, which has given up fewer yards than the previous year each season under Venables.

“We’re at that point where there shouldn’t be drastic dips,” Venables said. “If we were a team that recruited heavily in junior college, it could be more hit and miss because you’re so reliant on those guys, but we’re in a program that develops through the draft. Not everybody’s going to be that same guy, but hopefully it’s close.”

It helps that many returning Tigers made impacts last season. Shaq Lawson, Ben Boulware, D.J. Reader, Carlos Watkins, Jayron Kearse are just a few of the players Venables expects to fill big shoes left behind by the guys now in the NFL. And Reader says when you see the number of players Venables has helped get to the pros, you know something about his philosophy works.

“He’s consistent. He puts his players in the best position to make plays and he knows what he has and he knows what he wants,” Reader said. “He’s a student of the game. I trust 100 percent because a man who cares that much and watches that much film, he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t second-guess him on any decisions. As a defense we trust in him because we see that it works. That system works because he puts people in the right place.”