Dabo Swinney continues to add depth and experience to a coaching staff that was once woefully short on both.
Over the last few weeks, Swinney has made a flurry of moves to bolster his staff and front office – a weird term but one that is applicable in this new era of college football. Swinney hired Tom Allen as his defensive coordinator, the program added Kevin Kelly as the Director of Player Evaluation and Acquisition, and Lonnie Galloway and Mike Houston were brought on as unpaid volunteers to help with the offense (Galloway) and defense (Houston).
But it goes back further than that – following the Tigers’ loss at NC State back in 2023, a fuming Swinney put his staff on notice and has made the moves he deems necessary. He added offensive line coach Matt Luke and defensive ends coach Chris Rumph in the days following the 2023 regular season, and Lorenzo Ward was brought in as a special assistant to the head coach, defense and special teams.
Following the 2021 season, Swinney was faced with several changes to his staff – Tony Elliott left to be the head coach at Virginia, Robbie Caldwell retired as offensive line coach, Brent Venables was named the head coach at Oklahoma and defensive tackles coach Todd Bates left with Venables for Norman.
Swinney didn’t waste a lot of time naming Thomas Austin as offensive line coach, Kyle Richardson to tight ends coach, Lemanski Hall was in his third season as defensive ends coach, Brandon Streeterwas elevated to offensive coordinator, Mickey Conn as co-defensive coordinator, and Wes Goodwin was moved up from the analyst ranks to take over as defensive coordinator. C.J. Spiller had been named the running backs coach in February of 2021.