Garrett Riley wants his Clemson offense to attack, be violent and be fast

Garrett Riley speaks to the media Wednesday (Photo by Merrell Mann).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Feb 01 16:02:53 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Attack. Be violent. Be fast.

New offensive coordinator Garrett Riley met with the media Wednesday afternoon, his first appearance in front of the media since accepting the job from head coach Dabo Swinney earlier in January. I asked Riley about his offensive philosophy and he didn’t hold back.

"We are going to be violent and fast. Starts there. We are going to attack, be violent, and fast,” Riley told TigerNet. “Whether it's running, throwing to your tight end, tailback, this receiver, you want distribution. That's probably the No. 1 thing for me.

"Philosophically, I believe in letting them be confident in what they do and let their God-given abilities take over. That (simplicity) has been a consistent recipe in not only for me but other successful people. I am not a coach that is going to say, ‘we are going to run this’ just because I love it. We are going to figure out what our guys can do and what we feel like can make this offense awesome.”

Swinney said there will be a learning curve for everybody, including Riley, but at the end of the day, football plays are the same everywhere.

"Have to get on the same page. Four verticals is four verticals. Slants are slants. Screens are screens. But how you procedurally do things, cadence, motion, formations,” Swinney said. “Everybody calls things differently, so we have to collaborate and shorten the learning curve for everybody involved. Starts with Garrett being comfortable with what he wants to keep or change. He'll learn some things here that will help him too.

“Procedurally, how you get into some of the things that we've done for a long time. Football is football. How you game plan those things, install, practice them, how you drill them, cadence, those things where you have to get on same page. That's his big task in February, and getting to know his personnel too. Been some years where there were no tight ends where he was, and we have some good dudes there. Not like we are going to go to the triple-option here. Same components within the offense."

Riley admitted that he knew more about Swinney’s background than he did about Clemson, but once Swinney reached out, Riley did his own investigative work.

"I tried to investigate as much as I could from people that I know who know Coach (Swinney) better than I do,” Riley said. “That was important as all of this unfolded. I just tried to gauge that a little bit. But it has been awesome since we started. We hit the ground running.”