Eason was Stunned Clemson’s Dabo Swinney Offered Him DT Job

‘I really did not think he was calling me to offer me the job’

CLEMSON, S.C. — It was a late morning in January when Nick Eason took a phone call from one of his good friends in the coaching business.

His friend, another defensive line coach, had applied for a job at his alma mater, but he did not get the job.

“He called me and was asking for some encouragement,” Eason said following the Tigers’ fourth practice of the spring on Monday.

Eason told him to cheer up and not to let it get him down. It just was not the right time.

It was something the former Clemson defensive lineman was familiar with. From a distance, while coaching in the NFL, Eason watched his Tigers win a lot of football games and a couple of national championships.

He wished he was the one coaching his alma mater to a national championship.

“But the timing for me had not been right,” Eason said. “Maybe, who knows? Maybe, the opportunity will come down the road. You never know.”

That opportunity came 10 minutes later for Eason.

Eason did his job. He made his friend feel better. So, he hung up the phone.

“Literally, Dabo [Swinney] called me like ten minutes later,” said Eason, who was coaching the defensive line at Auburn at the time. “Like, out of nowhere. It scared me. I almost did not answer my phone. I really did not think he was calling me to offer me the job.”

But as everyone knows, that’s exactly what Swinney was doing. He offered Eason the opportunity to come and coach at Clemson, where he was a team captain and an All-ACC defensive end as a player from 1999-2002.

Swinney wanted Eason to come back to his alma mater and coach his defensive tackles and be his run game coordinator.

Eason was officially hired on January 7, 2022, to replace Todd Bates, who left Clemson to join Brent Venables’ staff at Oklahoma.

“To be here is just a blessing,” Eason said. “I really feel like God really ordered my steps in order for me to be here twenty years later. So, I am just excited and very humbled for the experience. I have not even gotten around to all the people that I know that our still here because it has just been so overwhelming with everything.

“It is truly a blessing.”