Two key assistant coaches won’t return to Clemson for 2026 season
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Clemson is coming off a loss in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstrip Bowl to Penn State. This led to a 7-6 finish for Clemson, the most losses since 2010. Now, the Tigers have announced coaching changes ahead of the 2026 campaign.
According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and co-defensive coordinator and safety coach Mickey Conn will not be returning to the team.
“I have made the decision to make a change at offensive coordinator. This was a very difficult decision. These decisions are never easy, especially when you really love and care for the people that are involved, and I deeply love and care for Garrett Riley and his family. At the end of the day, we just did not get the production and the results that we needed, and I just feel like it is time for a change, and so we will be moving in a different direction with a new offensive coordinator,” head coach Dabo Swinney said in a statement released by the school.
Riley has been the offensive coordinator since 2023. The younger brother of USC head coach Lincoln Riley has been an offensive coordinator since 2020. He spent 2020 and 2021 at SMU, and then 2022 at TCU. In the 2022 season, he was the Broyles Award winner as the top assistant coach in college football.
“We will also have a change with the leadership of our safeties with the departure of Mickey Conn. Coach Conn is someone that I’ve known since 1990 and he truly is family to me. He has done an amazing job here at Clemson. He’s been with us since 2016 — 10 years — and he’s been coaching the safeties since 2017 and coached a bunch of great safeties for us, including R.J. Mickens, who is a starting safety in the NFL as a rookie this year,” Swinney continued in the statement.
Swinney and Conn first met at Alabama when both were players on the team. They would coach together with the Tide when Conn was a GA from 1996-1997. He joined the Clemson staff as a defensive assistant in 2016 and was part of two national championship teams. He, along with Wes Goodwin, replaced Brent Venables at the DC position when he left for the Oklahoma head coach job.
Clemson was a playoff team in 2024 after winning the ACC. They have made a bowl game every season since 1999, except for 2004, when the team was bowl eligible but self-imposed punishment kept them out of the game. Swinney is 187-53 as the head coach, with nine conference titles and two national titles.
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