Five Names to Watch to Replace Garrett Riley as Clemson's Offensive Coordinator

The Clemson Tigers made their biggest move of the offseason two days after their 2025 season ended with the departure of third-year offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.

The Clemson offense dipped following a 2024 season that included a College Football Playoff appearance. The Tiger offense averaged 34.7 points that season before dropping to 27.2 points per game, which was 10th in the ACC.

With a move hoping to happen quickly, due to the transfer portal opening up on Jan. 2, here are five names to watch that could be taking Riley’s position next season.

Chad Morris, former SMU and Arkansas HC, Clemson OC

Swinney leads a close-knit group, and Morris was a part of that group from 2011-2014, where the Tigers went on a 42-11 run to begin the championship runs that Clemson would have later that decade.

Morris spent time as the SMU head coach from 2015-17 and at Arkansas from 2018-19. He bounced around several places after, including a return to Clemson as an offensive analyst in 2023, before being the wide receivers coach at Texas State in the 2024 season.

Currently, Morris is working for ANSRS, a data and video management system for football as a senior advisor to the CEO. The reason for that was to watch his son, Chandler, who led the Virginia Cavaliers to the ACC Championship as their starting quarterback. He is now looking for another year of eligibility to play his seventh year of college football.

There are similarities to the offseason before Morris was hired and this one, with Clemson coming off its worst season since that 2010 season before hiring him to take the helm. Could that happen again?

Kade Bell, Pittsburgh OC

Bell has only spent two seasons with the Panthers, but he has taken the offense to new heights instantly.

The offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach have put Pittsburgh in the top five of scoring offenses in the ACC after averaging 32.9 and 33.7 points, respectively, between 2024 and 2025. It is also important to note that the starting quarterbacks of each of those seasons were true freshmen, with Eli Holstein and Mason Heintschel running the show on offense.

It’s somewhat common to see a coordinator move almost laterally within the conference to see bigger opportunities, one that could see Bell leading with either Christopher Vizzina or a transfer quarterback, if head coach Dabo Swinney decides to do so.

Bell had the same role at Western Carolina before coming to the ACC, and the Catamounts averaged 37.5 points per game, fourth in the country in that statistic.

Todd Monken, Baltimore Ravens OC

Social media has had Monken as the top guy to be Riley’s replacement, having proven success in college football before seeing time in the NFL as offensive coordinator for different franchises.

Most recently, Monken was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Georgia from 2020-22, being a part of the Bulldogs’ back-to-back national championship runs before getting a call for the NFL with Baltimore.

During that stint, he also worked closely with Matt Luke, then-Georgia associate head coach and offensive line coach. Now that Luke is at Clemson, there could be a possibility that he brings some pull with Monken, if he decides to return to college athletics.

Before his time with the Ravens and Bulldogs, Monken spent 26 seasons in college athletics, most notably with Southern Mississippi as its head coach (2013-15), Oklahoma State as its offensive coordinator (2011-12) and Eastern Michigan in the same role (1998-99).

Jonathan Brewer, Duke OC

Clemson fans know Brewer too well as the coach who let his offense score 46 points at Memorial Stadium in November to defeat Clemson, and he’s taken the Blue Devils to new heights.

Brewer joined the Blue Devils in 2024 after serving with SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee as a co-offensive coordinator in 2023. In his two seasons at Duke, the 38-year-old went from scoring 26.3 points per game to 34 points a contest this season, which was the best in the ACC and 19th in the country this season.

Duke’s 282.2 passing yards per game was also 15th in the country, which was led by a transfer quarterback in Darian Mensah, whose 3,646 passing yards were third in the country.

Similar to Bell, Brewer is another in-conference hire that could end up being a home run with more valuable assets to use at Clemson. He was able to bring the Blue Devils to an ACC Championship in just his second year, and the potential is there for it to be a home run hire if Swinney decides to go in that direction.

Andy Kotelnicki, former Penn State OC

Clemson was able to do this with Tom Allen, poaching him from the Nittany Lions to become the Tigers’ defensive coordinator. Now, could Swinney do that with Kotelnicki?

There is discussion, as Kotelnicki will not return to Penn State after the new head coach, Matt Campbell, brings his Iowa State staff with him on offense. That means that he is up for grabs, and Kotelnicki brings a strong resume.

In his first season with the Nittany Lions in 2024, Kotelnicki was a part of the squad that made it all the way to the College Football Playoff semifinals before a loss to Notre Dame. Penn State had 22.8% of plays be 15+ yard passes, which was the best in the Big Ten. He led an offense that was also second in the conference in big play percentage, at 16.5%, which was seventh in the country in doing so.

With the number of injuries that Penn State saw on offense, like starting quarterback Drew Allar, as well as a mid-year firing of head coach James Franklin at the time, Kotelnicki’s offense couldn’t do the same in 2025, which led to his departure.

He was the Buffalo offensive coordinator from 2015-20 and the Kansas offensive coordinator from 2021-2023. Now, out of a job, does Swinney look for a coach who can get a run game going and, at the same time, able to make big plays frequently?