Clemson hoping for a Steele Curtain

By Robert Rousseau  |   Wednesday, January 14, 2009  |  Comments( 2 )

 Clemson Tigers
Head coach Dabo Swinney seems to have landed the Clemson Tigers an excellent defensive coordinator in Kevin Steele. Steele possesses plenty of experience, having coached linebackers -- something he will do at Clemson in addition to coordinator duties -- for the likes of Tennessee, New Mexico State, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Florida State and...
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CommentsComments: 2
 No.1
RazzMaTazz		 04:32 PM
01/14/2009
"Swinney is doing a very good job of picking his staff?' Steele may be a pretty good choice. Is Steele better than Koenning? That's arguable. Is Napier a good choice? That's really hard to argue.

Clemson's defense has been decent over the years. Clemson's biggest problem has been on offense, and much of that has been a result of the offensive line. Yet Swinney failed to hire an experienced OC, and instead Swinney promoted Nobody Napier to OC. And Swinney kept Brad Scott coaching the O-line. This does not seem like a recipe for success. It seems more like emotional, unforced errors from a rookie head coach. Clemson's offense under Napier/Swinney wasn't much better than it was under Spence/Bowden, despite the fact that they had a better, healthier, more stable O-line. Napier/Swinney had a month to get ready for Nebraska, but they couldn't even get the opening play off without having to burn a time out. They managed 4 yards of rushing in that game despite having two NFL-bound running backs. And in the final drive, the offense seemed unready, confused, & panicked. As I recall, they didn't even get Aaron Kelly near the end-zone on one of the final plays. It was not the type of performance that you tend to see from teams who have great, veteran OCs. I guess we'll be watching Napier/Swinney get some on-the-job-training next year. Brace yourselves.
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