Garrett Riley reveals impact Mike Leach had on his career

New Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley learned a lot from Mike Leach. The late Mississippi State head coach taught Riley a lot of things when the two were together at Texas Tech.

Riley rose through the coaching ranks and followed Leach’s teachings throughout numerous stops. The former TCU offensive coordinator got a big gig this offseason when Dabo Swinney hired him at Clemson.

When Riley was introduced, he spoke about Leach’s impact on his career.

“I guess the first part of your question is Coach Leach is probably the whole reason why I wanted to coach,” Riley said. “I mean, I was just very lucky to be at Texas Tech at that point in time. I’ve said it before, it was just a period of time where he was very cutting edge with what they were doing and kind of the run they went on at Texas Tech. But I think just more than anything, the way that he was an out of the box thinker and did things his way was very appealing to me. 

“To kind of see a different style, I guess, you know, a little bit different than the norm and that’s what piqued my interest there as a college student, as a young quarterback. But yeah, I mean, his impact is, as we all know, has certainly touched the game in a lot of ways.”

Riley played quarterback at Texas Tech from 2008-09 and began his coaching career in 2011 at Roosevelt HS (Texas) as the quarterbacks coach. He got his first college job at East Carolina in 2013 and eventually went to Kansas in 2016.

Riley became the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2017 and began his rise through the profession. He went to Appalachian State in 2019 as the running backs coach and was hired as the offensive coordinator at SMU in 20202 before going to TCU last season.

Now at Clemson, Riley surely will implement some of Leach’s teachings in the Tigers’ new offense.

After he announced Riley as Clemson’s next offensive coordinator, Swinney spoke about the hire and detailed his excitement.

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“Obviously I know his pedigree, his background, and all that stuff,” Swinney said. “But this was something that kind of happened in short order. And the best part about it is nobody knew about it until they needed to know about it. We’re really, really excited. Again, we’re just very impressed with what he did at SMU by taking the reins there. And then walking into TCU and they went from five wins to playing in the national championship.”