Coming of age
My goal next week is to produce a to-do wish list for Clemson’s offseason. And the more I’ve loosely brainstormed some ideas, the more one item has come front and center:
Show offensive coordinator Billy Napier some love.
That can obviously come in various forms – none more salient than a raise, of course.
With so much focus on the pulse of Clemson’s season – the program’s direction seemed to hang in the balance on a weekly basis – the first-year coordinator’s job in molding the offense has been relatively glossed over.
Sure, C.J. Spiller can make anyone look good.
But what the Tigers showed offensively since the Maryland game – sans only the USC debacle – was nothing short of impressive. No telling how many points Clemson might have put up the final two games if the defense hadn’t developed a nasty habit of allowing time-consuming 10-play drives.
It was very interesting before the Music City Bowl to hear Kentucky coach Rich Brooks suggest that the difference between Clemson from their 2006 bowl meeting was how its offense has become so much more difficult to plan to defend because of what Napier has done with his formations and pre-snap shifting.
Wasn’t that supposed to be Rob Spence’s modus operandi?
Just found it tremendously clever how he manipulated so many two-TE, two-WR sets to generate such a prolific offense – particularly factoring in how he managed to minimize the impact of Clemson lacking another bona fide pass-catching receiver beyond Jacoby Ford.
Before the season, Napier’s age and inexperience combo were viewed as a detriment; at 30, he’s the youngest coordinator among the six BCS conferences by nearly three years and entered the season as the fifth-youngest among 120 FBS programs.
But take what we’ve seen from him in terms of scheme, adjustments and game-planning, add it to how he helped develop Kyle Parker this season, then tack on the fairly reasonable belief he’s among the better assistant coaching recruiters in the region, if not nation – and well, that’s a pretty valuable commodity.
One that some SEC program with exponentially deeper pockets figures to try to pry away sooner rather than later, I’d bet.
40-year-old Dabo Swinney might be a tad young to name a head coach-in-waiting.
But suddenly the $200,000 salary Napier made this season – about double the $110,000 he got last year as tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator – looks like a bargain.
The somewhat scrutinized move to promote Napier to coordinator appears a rather shrewd decision. Could it have been perhaps Swinney’s top move to date?
9 Comments to “Coming of age”
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Clemson Beat writer Paul Strelow blogs about Clemson University athletics.
The situation reminds me alot of when Al Groh brought in a 31 year old OC named Ron Prince. He was young, intune w/ new and creative offensive schemes. Virgina was headed for the promise land, had a boat load of talent…They looked they the team that would dominate the ACC for years….Then Ron Prince got the Kansas State job and the bottom fell out…Virgina turned to crap and Ron fell on his face at KSU….
Let’s hope the end result is ALOT different than the above mentioned, but I see alot of similarities between the 2 (dabo/Billy & Groh/Prince)
Hopefully, there’s loyalty on the part of Napier since Dabo gave him a job nobody else would have based on his experience….If not, Clemson better pay him to stay
Im more sold on Billy as the OC, than I am w/ Steele as the DC or Dabo as the Head Coach
Paul -
Thanks for bringing this point front and center stage. Prior to Tommy’s departure, I heard repeatedly during conversation at baseball games that Terry Don felt like Billy had a bright future and would go to great lengths to keep him in Clemson. When Dabo promoted him to OC, I felt like we were on the right track despite what all the “X-Box Playin’/What have you done for me latelys” were posting all over message boards. I was frustrated like everyone else after the Maryland debacle, but I truly felt like Dabo was co-coordinating with Billy up to that point. I feel like Billy answered the challenge when he was given the keys to drive. Dabo indirectly references growing as a coach and I think his trust in Billy was solidified at that juncture in the season.
Heading into the season, all I wanted was a head coach that showed passion, motivated his team to play their best, and would take responsibility for losses and aim to correct mistakes. I never had a doubt that Dabo would do just that. I’m not a sunshine pumper, but our culture has changed and kids respond to coaches that they can connect with. Dabo and Billy have that trait. Things may get tougher next year, but I’ll be content knowing that these two guys will be working relentlessly to develop our younger players.
When others come calling as you accurately stated, it will be up to Terry Don and his crew to make sure that the foundation Dabo is in the process of builing remains intact.
Todd – great comments man…I look forward to what these guys can do in the future and how they grow as a staff
Paul,
I it sounds like you list is 5 things for the AD to do, so here’s one.
Petition the BCS to require teams to play at least one other BCS team from outside your conference to be eligible for the national championship game. Texas played none. Better yet, if the BCS is to be a division, all schools should be required to play 2 other BCS schools outside their own conference like Clemson is doing for the next 6 years. This year some examples are Alabama(1), Texas(0), Cincinati(2), Florida(1), OSU(1), LSU(1), Georgia(2), S. Car(2), Tenn(1), Clemson(1), Miami(2)
Give some props to teams that play the likes of TCU and Boise St.
But why should we stick our necks out and play Auburn when Texas doesn’t have to play anyone?
Can someone please tell me where I can find Clemson’s football schedule for 2010??? I cant seem to find it anywhere…I know it’s not official for sometime, but since they make schedules like 10 years in advance, it’s gotta be somewhere right?
Paul,
When do you expect we’ll here something about Mcdaniel?
Napier did a pretty bad job until after the UMD game. He failed to game-plan for guys like GT’s Morgan and he failed to make use of the TE passing game. After some on-the-job training, Napier did fine post-UMD. “Experience is what you get when you’re expecting something else.”
Nonetheless, I’d trade Napier in a heartbeat for a top-tier seasoned OC. I’m glad that Napier got his act together after the UMD game, but if Swinney had hired a top-tier OC, Clemson probably would have beaten GT (1st game), TCU, & UMD– all of which were lost by a few points. In that case Clemson might have been looking at 12-win season, a top 15 ranking, and a BCS bowl, with star recruits drooling over Clemson. From that perspective, I don’t think that Billy Napier was such a bargain.
albtigers – the ACC controls the schedules of the league’s games. Only games available on sched for Clemson now are the out-of-league games. ACC holds decisions until May or June in order to set up the best TV matchups week to week. They don’t want too many high-profile games to be played on the same day. One can pretty much look at the schedule once it is released and, for the early-season games, predict which ones will get the favorable TV times (those usually involve Miami or Fla State, of course, and quite often Va Tech, much to Clemson’s disappointment).
Paul – I recently saw Forbes’ list of the top 20 football colleges in the country (net income and profitability being the key to the rankings) and was surprised that South Carolina was No. 12 and Clemson no where to be found. How much of a gap is there between the revenues raised and profits of those schools? Is there much difference in the average ticket price of a home game between USC and Clemson that would account for it? Is the difference due to USC playing to full houses at opponents’ sites in the SEC while Clemson plays to smaller audiences on the road in the ACC? Does USC sell a whole lot more apparel to its fans than Clemson (having gone to a number of Clemson games, it is hard to imagine that many schools could sell more clothes, flags, decals, etc. than the Tiger fans buy).