Garrett Riley shares what he has taken from brother Lincoln

For newly hired Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley it’s sometimes difficult to get around the link he shares with USC‘s head coach. Garrett Riley is the younger brother of highly-touted college football offensive guru Lincoln Riley. And during his coaching tenure, he’s gotten the opportunity to work on the same staff as his brother. And during a recent interview, Garrett shared what he has taken from his brother while working with him and being in the same field of work.

“All these stops; every stop I’ve been on, you try to take away pieces from those experiences,” said Riley. “And I certainly did in the two years I was with him at East Carolina; when we were there together. (We) did some nice things under coach McNeil, who’s been a huge mentor for me. So yeah, specifically with him, I’ve taken pieces away from that experience, but I certainly have from all the other coaches I’ve been around too.”

Riley has spent his last two seasons as an offensive coordinator for TCU’s current head coach Sonny Dykes. The duo worked together at SMU, leading the Mustangs to a top-15-ranked offense in both scoring and total offense. They followed that up with a Cinderella run this past season with the Horned Frogs all the way to the College Football Playoff national championship game. Despite a monstrous loss against Georgia, TCU still had a top-10-ranked offense with Riley at the helm. And now that he has teamed up with Swinney, the objective is to revamp Clemson’s offense to complement their always demonstrative defense.

Why Clemson assistants Nick Eason, Mike Reed received raises

Clemson football assistant coaches received new contracts last week, with all nine coaches retained from the 2022 season having an extra year added to their deals.

Of the nine — two also received raises in defensive tackles coach Nick Eason and cornerbacks coach Mike Reed.

Eason and Reed each received a $50,000 pay bump and now both make $800,000 per year. They are also both on three-year contracts. You can view the new contracts for all 10 Clemson assistant coaches here.

After the Clemson Board of Trustees approved the new contracts on Friday, we spoke with Athletics Director Graham Neff about why Reed and Eason received raises, while other Clemson assistant coaches did not.

Neff said that the two are coaches who other schools have tried to hire away, but there were other factors, as well.

“You get the performance and just the development on the field with their position groups,” Neff said. “Sure, the recruiting aspect. I know there’s a lot of momentum with that within the program and let alone how Nick and Mike do that.”

Clemson signed the No. 10 class in the country for 2023, according to the On3 Consensus rankings, and Eason and Reed played a big part in that.