Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Going Back to Instincts With Chad Morris Hire

At times, history repeats itself, and that’s what Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney did on Saturday afternoon.

After a 6-7 season in 2010, Swinney would move on from then-offensive coordinator Billy Napier and hire Chad Morris, bringing a 42-11 record over a four-year tenure before heading off for a head coaching job.

In 2025, Swinney had his worst season since that 2010 season, and ended up doing the same thing.

Part ways with offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, then bring back Morris for another shot at turning the Tigers around. Now, Swinney will face a 2026 season with more scrutiny than he’s seen before.

The hire comes with Swinney trusting his instincts, which is something that he talked about during the regular season. The Clemson head coach believes that he has strayed away from his core beliefs, and moving back to trusting himself will be how he would be moving forward with the program.

“What I believed, and that’s honestly probably something that I’ve probably not done, if I evaluate myself, I’ve probably gotten away a little bit from my instincts, and not trusting some of my instincts,” he said on Nov. 4, “and that’s one of my things I’ve got to get back to.”

Swinney then gives an anecdote about that 2010 season mentioned before. He thought that he was going to get fired when he lost the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina, to close out the year. However, with the guidance of athletic director Terry Don Phillips, Swinney would return the following year.

Then, he shifted from the moves that he typically made.

“I was really fortunate to get another year,” Swinney said, “but I made some decisions that were critical and some that weren’t very popular, you know.”

Morris was one of those moves 15 years ago, and that’s the move he made again on Saturday. The 57-year-old hasn’t had a coordinator job since 2020, one he was let go from after that season with the Auburn Tigers. However, the complete opposite was said about Riley, who was the reigning Broyles Award winner with TCU, given to the best assistant coach in college football.

From Morris’s tenure from 2011-14, the Tigers never had an offense that produced under 400 yards per game, including three of four seasons with over 280 passing yards per contest. He had a 1,000-yard receiver every season, whether that was Sammy Watkins, DeAndre Hopkins or Mike Williams.

Of course, the main change that has occurred over the 12 years that Morris hasn’t called the plays has been the transfer portal and NIL, which brings a completely new dynamic into the fold. However, it’s Swinney’s instinct, and if it works again, it will be a home run hire that the Tigers have been looking for.

The Clemson head coach laments back on the hires he made 15 years ago saved his job, and that could happen again if the coaching staff works and the Tigers pick up some key players through the transfer portal over the next two weeks.

“I guarantee you, if people had said I’d still be here in 2025, nobody would have believed it at the time,” Swinney said. “A lot of y’all wouldn’t have believed it. . .but I’m still here.”