Swinney is hiring the right coaches for Clemson

By Robert Rousseau  |   Thursday, December 18, 2008  |  Comments( 3 )

Clemson Tigers
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Beyond the obvious practice and game-time decisions that a college football head coach must make are the things they do that don’t get as much airtime during the season. Two of these are recruiting and hiring a capable coaching staff. So far, the bottom line is that newly appointed Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney is doing very well with the latter.

First, there’s Charlie Harbison. The Tigers’ new defensive backs coach is a huge score for a variety of reasons. Harbison served as the safeties coach at Mississippi State under former skipper Sylvester Croom the past two seasons, and was also the team's defensive coordinator in 2008. He helped guide the club to national rankings of seventh (2007) and 20th ('08) in pass defense while there. Clearly, then, he’s proven himself recently in a top conference. Reinforcing this, he has significant and successful coaching experience in the SEC that stretches far beyond Mississippi State, having worked on Alabama and LSU staffs that won conference championships.

Harbison even spent some time in the past at Clemson, where he worked as defensive backs coach from 1995-97. Moreover, he has a daughter who works at the university. Thus, it may feel like a homecoming to him, and an assistant coming home is better than one missing home. This can’t be understated, nor can the effects of knowing a recruiting area firsthand.

Finally, Harbison has worked with Swinney before on the Alabama staff from 1998-2000. Therefore, this won’t be a situation like the Auburn Tigers had this season when former head coach Tommy Tuberville found out quickly that Tony Franklin and his spread offense just weren’t a good fit. Swinney already knows that Harbison will fit in with him and the team.

Then there’s Swinney’s hiring of Danny Pearman as tight ends/tackles coach. Pearman is a former Clemson tight end himself, making it a homecoming as well. Further, Pearman has seen his share of success, most recently at Maryland as tight ends and special teams coach (he has coached the last 11 years in the ACC, which will surely help in recruiting). Besides that, Pearman saw it done right way back in 1992 as offensive tackles and special teams coach of a national championship-winning Alabama team that was led by Gene Stallings. Heck, this is a guy who even served on a Virginia Tech club that made it to a national championship under Frank Beamer.

Pearman's used to winning, that's for sure.

Some have been quite happy with the pick of Swinney as Clemson’s new headman. Others have been put off by it, however. But the bottom line is that the new head coach at Clemson has made some good early decisions on his staff. It will be interesting to see how things unfold on this front moving forward.
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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or...
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