Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Details Reasoning For Hiring Chad Morris

Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney is going “back to the future” with the hiring of offensive coordinator Chad Morris,

Swinney opened his Friday afternoon press conference, shooting plenty of references from the 80s movie, even calling his new coordinator “Marty McFly.” But there are plenty of reasons why he brought Morris back.

The Clemson head coach went into detail about it, believing that history repeats itself at times. Morris helped bring the Tigers’ offense's average to 468.5 yards per game across his four seasons in his first stint. Swinney says that “he knows how to score points,”, leading to the hire.

“Sometimes in life, you have to go back in order to go forward,” he said, “and I think that’s where we are in this case.”

He brings a balanced attack to his offenses, but it will be one that brings emphasis to the run game. Clemson was outside the top 100 in rushing yards per carry, and Swinney believes that his hire has answers.

“Our philosophies line up, and you know, we got to run the football,” he said, “and we can run the football, it makes your team tougher.”

“And when you run the football, you create some one-on-one matchups, and he loves taking advantage of those things,” Swinney added. “So there were just a lot of things, back then that are the same now, but the game is evolved.”

Swinney also understands that some of his decisions are not agreed with by most of the general public. However, he makes an important note about some of the decisions he’s had, and how the good ones led to success in years past.

“My worst decisions have been the most popular, to be honest, all right, and I’ve made good decisions and bad ones,” he said.

The two have plenty of trust in each other, and Swinney detailed that this hire is a process that can take a little bit of time. The Clemson head coach believes that Morris also has some solutions to things within his offense.

“The other thing with Chad is I felt like I would have some time with him to build a runway to really build a foundation of what I wanted offensively,” he said. “There were some things that we had in place here, but he had some answers that I didn’t quite have yet.”

However, don’t get it twisted. Swinney says that a lot of the reasons for the hire bring similar reasons for why he did it 16 years ago.

“I’ll just say this, the reasons that I hired Chad in 2011 are the exact same reasons that I’ve hired him today,” he said.

A crucial offseason awaits Swinney and Morris, and if the decision pays off, the two could be playing important football in the winter months of 2026-27.