A little over a week ago, Clemson lost Defensive Coordinator Brent Venables when he accepted the position of Head Coach at the University of Oklahoma.
A week later, the exit door opened again as Offensive Coordinator Tony Elliott took his services to Cavalier Country, assuming the Head Coach role for Virginia.
Just a few days later, the Athletics Director's office was emptied as well, as AD Dan Radakovich, a graduate of the University of Miami accepted the same position with the Hurricanes.
Of the four power offices of the Clemson Tigers football program, only Head Coach Dabo Swinney remained, faced with the challenge of filling those voids.
Would Swinney look outside of the program to find big names to fill those roles? Would he poach major names from other programs? Or would he look inward, promoting from the ranks of the staff he had assembled under him?
On Tuesday, Clemson announced that those questions were officially answered with the promotions of Wes Goodwin to the DC role, and Brandon Streeter to the OC position.
Streeter has been with the program for seven years as a full time assistant coach after joining the Tigers program in 2014. Under his tutelage as QB Coach, Clemson has had two players become Heisman Trophy Finalists, including Deshaun Watson, who visited New York Twice, and Trevor Lawrence, who was the 2020 runner-up. After the 2019 season, Streeter moved into the role of Passing Game Coordinator, where his 2020 offense set a school record of 348.5 passing yards per game.
Streeter has also worked as Clemson's recruiting coordinator, helping build top ten recruiting classes in five od six recruiting cycles while in that role.
Into Venables' old office steps Wes Goodwin, who has served ten years at Clemson, broken into two runs. From 2012-14, Goodwin was a defensive analyst, with the Tigers ranking best in the country in total defense in his final season. Goodwin also spent time with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals before returning to Clemson, organizing a 13-3 season and an NFC Championship Game appearance in 2015.
Dabo Swinney said the decision to elevate Goodwin and Streeter was "easy," saying "I've always taken a lot of pride in developing our players and developing our team, but I also take a lot of pride in developing our staff. Sometimes it's not feasible to promote from within, but these were really easy decisions for me, just like it was an easy decision for me in 2014 to name Tony [Elliott] as the play caller and Jeff [Scott] to be co-coordinator."
Referring to Streeter, Swinney said "Offensively, there's nobody more deserving... Unlike Tony and Jeff in 2014, he's called a lot of plays in his day... and that time has come. I'm really excited for him to take the reins and lead us into this bowl game and into the 2022 season."
