Swinney gives Streeter and Goodwin an 'A' through five games

Wes Goodwin stays cool on the sidelines.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Oct 04 07:00:05 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney doesn’t hand out grades based on a curve, and he doesn’t ask his pupils to work for extra credit. Swinney grades on one thing: winning.

No. 5 Clemson sits a 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the ACC after five games. Two of those ACC wins have come against Wake Forest and NC State, the two teams many thought were poised to keep the Tigers away from an ACC Atlantic Division crown.

Big games remain – the Tigers are at Boston College this weekend, and then travel to Florida State the following week. Both are night games in away stadiums against teams who might be feeling the upset. Following that is a home date against a Syracuse team that is still undefeated.

Clemson underwent a sea change during the offseason – after a decade of incredible stability, Swinney and the Tigers lost both defensive coordinator Brent Venables and offensive coordinator Tony Elliott to head coaching jobs. Venables is now at Oklahoma and Elliott is at Virginia, but Swinney didn’t go outside the program to find replacements.

Swinney tabbed quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter to call the offense and promoted analyst Wes Goodwin to the role of defensive coordinator, a job he shares with safeties coach Mickey Conn.

Both obviously are still settling in and learning what they have on their respective side of the ball, but I asked Swinney Sunday night how he would grade his coaches through five games.

“I give them an A,” Swinney said. “We’re 5-0. We haven’t been perfect, but the name of the game is to find a way to win. And we’ve been able to do that. We’ve been able to come up with a crucial stop when we’ve had to have it and the crucial score when we’ve had to have it. That’s ultimately what it’s all about. We are really settling in and growing. It’s not just Wes, Street or (co-defensive coordinator) Mickey (Conn). It’s our whole support staff. We have a lot of moving pieces in our support staff on offense and defense, and those guys are doing a fantastic job week in and week out with game planning. Everybody is really invested, but Street and Wes have done an excellent job.”

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been growing pains – the defense struggled at Wake Forest and the offense has disappeared at different times, and there have been playcalls that didn’t work out. However, Swinney said that sometimes the fault lies elsewhere.

“Sometimes you make a bad call, and you don’t get hurt with it. Somebody makes you look good. Sometimes you make a perfect call and somebody busts and you look bad,” Swinney said. “There’s a lot that goes into it that people don’t really necessarily know or see, but those guys have done a great job . And then what I see during the week as far as our structure, our organization and our communication. I really like how we’re practicing. There’s just a lot of positives with those guys.”