Will Dabo consider staff changes after 1-3 start? What Clemson’s coach said
Clemson football is 1-3 for the first time ever under Dabo Swinney.
Could that historically bad start lead to midseason staff changes?
Swinney — who has never fired a Clemson assistant coach in the middle of a season, outside of when he took over as interim coach in 2008 — was asked about the possibility of midyear staff changes during his weekly teleconference Monday.
Swinney said he wasn’t planning to, but he didn’t explicitly rule it out.
“I don’t anticipate that,” Swinney said. “My focus is just on trying to have a great open date and trying to reset our goals. We’ve got an eight-game season. That’s how we have to look at it and reset our goals on what we need to do.
“But we’ve got a bunch of good people here. Got a bunch of great people, honestly, that have worked their tails off. It’s frustrating when you don’t get the results that you feel like you’ve worked for, but that’s life and that’s football.”
Swinney continued to say that even though the sport is unpredictable, “we also have accountability, and we all know that we’ve got a job to do. And it’s my job to make sure that we’re better. We certainly have not achieved what we expected to achieve. ... It’s not been what we’ve worked for.”
Earlier Monday, Larry Williams of TigerIllustrated, citing multiple sources, reported that Swinney had “threatened major changes to the offensive staff” last week, “and he wasn’t talking about waiting until after the season.”
That reported threat of potential midyear changes came before Clemson lost 34-21 at home to Syracuse as a 17.5-point favorite Saturday. The Tigers had entered the game with essentially no margin for error in the ACC championship game race.
Clemson was booed by its home crowd multiple times throughout the game. The preseason No. 4 team in the country now sits at 1-3 for the first time since 2004 and has lost five of its last six games against power conference teams.
Fan frustration centers around offensive staff
Although first-year defensive coordinator Tom Allen’s unit hasn’t been without its struggle and got gashed against Syracuse, most fan frustration has centered around offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and the rest of the offensive coaching staff.
After four games, Clemson is tied for No. 113 nationally in scoring offense (19.8 points per game) and No. 89 in total offense (365.3 yards per game). The Tigers haven’t scored more than 21 points against a P4 team this season, and their yardage totals were boosted from a Syracuse game in which they trailed by multiple scores.
Swinney was asked Monday to evaluate Riley as a playcaller.
“Those are things you evaluate as you go through the course of the season and certainly end of the year,” Swinney said. “And there’s definitely things that everybody can do better on both sides of the ball. But there’s also been a lot of things that have been there that we haven’t executed well.”
Although he didn’t directly name Riley, Swinney said of his staff: “We’ve got good people. ... And I love the people that we have. It’s my job to help them be better, find a way to go finish strong, and that’s what’s what our focus is gonna be.”
Swinney’s history of firing assistant coaches is limited but has picked up in recent years. He went 10 years without firing a single assistant from 2012-22, a nod to Clemson’s ability to attract, develop and retain strong coaches.
More recently, Swinney has fired offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter (2022), offensive line coach Thomas Austin (2023) and defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin (2024). Swinney and a fourth assistant, defensive ends coach Lemanski Hall, agreed to part ways after the 2023 season in what was framed as a mutual decision.
Swinney’s last time making a midseason staff change was when he fired offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Rob Spence in November 2008, after Swinney was promoted to interim coach to replace Tommy Bowden.
Swinney said he’s 100% focused on finishing the 2025 season strong.
“We’re not going to win the national championship this year,” Swinney said. “We’ve won three in 130 years. But that doesn’t mean we can’t win the season, doesn’t mean we can’t finish well and doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the journey.”
Clemson football 2025 assistant coaches
Annual salaries listed for 2025-26 season
- Defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Tom Allen, $1.9 million
- Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Garrett Riley, $1.75 million
- Defensive tackles coach Nick Eason, $1.1 million
- Offensive line coach Matt Luke, $1.1 million
- Defensive ends coach Chris Rumph, $1 million
- Safeties coach Mickey Conn, $950,000
- Cornerbacks coach Mike Reed, $950,000
- Tight ends coach Kyle Richardson, $637,500
- Running backs coach C.J. Spiller, $575,000
- Wide receivers coach Tyler Grisham, $575,000
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 5:56 PM.
