Friday Notebook: Jeff Scott mentioned for possible SEC job, big recruiting weekend on tap |
A big recruiting weekend is on tap, perhaps the biggest since the Tigers hosted elite prospects last June, and
Jeff Scott’s name has been mentioned for a prominent job.
It’s going to be a busy weekend around Clemson – the baseball team starts practice Friday, Brad Brownell’s basketball team plays at FSU Saturday afternoon, and the football coaches host a bevy of top prospects for a big junior day Saturday. But before we get into a Friday notebook, I will note that former Clemson assistant Jeff Scott was mentioned in an article by the Alabama 247Sports site as a possible offensive coordinator hire. Bill O’Brien, who had served as the offensive coordinator in Tuscaloosa the past two seasons, was named as the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots earlier this week. O’Brien spent five seasons with the Patriots (2007-11) and then went on to be the head coach at both Penn State and for the Houston Texans before going to Alabama. There had been rumors that Nick Saban was looking for new blood at that spot, and many Bama fans were hopeful that Saban would target TCU’s Garrett Riley. However, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney swooped in and hired Riley a few weeks ago, and now Saban is looking for yet another coach. The Alabama 247 site listed Scott as a possible candidate, along with Joe Brady (Buffalo Bills quarterbacks coach and former LSU assistant coach), Derek Dooley (currently an offensive analyst at Alabama), Brian Johnson (QB coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, Kliff Kingsbury (last spotted in Thailand after being let go by Arizona), Jeff Lebby (who works for Brent Venables at OU as offensive coordinator), and Greg Roman (former Baltimore Ravens OC). I think it’s interesting that Scott’s name was included because he’s never worked directly with quarterbacks, which looks like it would be a must for that job, but also because until he lands somewhere, his name will pop up in coaching vacancies. He is a highly-regarded recruiter and wide receivers coach and was the co-offensive coordinator (along with Tony Elliott) during some big offensive years for the Tigers. Yes, he is living in Clemson and yes, we’ve all heard he is simply taking some time off before perhaps returning to the Tigers in some role. But if Saban came calling, for that job, you have to listen, right? *As we noted earlier this week, this is a big weekend as the Tigers host Elite Junior Day. We will run another full list later, but the timing is right for the coaches to get their top targets on campus. I said this might be the biggest even since the coaches hosted visitors last June, an event that led to several commitments for the 2023 recruiting class. The Tigers need to gain some positive momentum heading into the dead period. *We will head out to Doug Kingsmore later today for the first baseball practice of the “spring.” I spoke with new head coach Erik Bakich a few weeks ago, and he said he thinks he has a talented roster. “The talent on our roster from the neck down, I would put up against any team that we had at Michigan,” he said. “We had some pretty talented teams, but the physical talent from the neck down on the baseball team right now - I've said it many times, the previous staff did a great job of accumulating a lot of physically talented players. And it's been eye-opening to see how some of them have, number one, gotten better, but number two, just their God-given natural abilities. It's been very impressive. "And I know it's relative because it's the ACC and the ACC baseball's really good, but we saw some pretty good competition up in Michigan too, but we never had a team that is as talented one-to-40 as this one is. So that was a very, very pleasant surprise to see just the collection of players physically that are very skilled at the sport of baseball.” More to come from players and Bakich later today.
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