Dabo Swinney reveals Brandon Streeter turned down multiple promotions to stay at Clemson

NS_headshot_clearbackgroundby:Nick Schultz•07/20/22•

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One of Clemson’s biggest hires of the offseason was promoting Brandon Streeter to offensive coordinator after Tony Elliott left for Virginia. But as it turns out, he had some outside interest before staying with the Tigers.

Dabo Swinney looked back on Streeter’s time in Clemson and confirmed he received interest from other schools and even the NFL. But ultimately, he decided to stay with Swinney, and the Tigers headman said Streeter had the resume to get the promotion.

“Brandon Streeter has been with me since December of ’14 when we played in the bowl game against Oklahoma there in Orlando,” Swinney said. “He coached Deshaun [Watson] for two years. He recruited Trevor. He coached him all three years. He recruited DJ [Uiagalelei] and recruited [Cade] Klubnik. He deserves it.

“He has turned down multiple coordinator jobs in and out of our league, the SEC, NFL. He has had multiple opportunities, but he has been our passing game coordinator for a few years now. With Tony [Elliott] getting the job at Virginia, again, he deserved it and he has earned it.”

Dabo Swinney compares DJ Uiagalelei’s start to his own at Clemson

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney came to the defense of his quarterback, DJ Uiagalelei, by comparing how they both struggled early at Clemson. Swinney was fielding questions at ACC media days when asked about fan perception of Uiagalelei, prompting the Tigers’ coach to come to his defense and downplay outside opinions.

“They had a lot of great opinions his freshman year, didn’t they? They wanted me to sit Trevor for DJ,” Swinney said, in part. “I had some of them, ‘I think we should sit Trevor. He is not playing great. Let’s put this DJ.’ DJ set records as a freshman. He did an amazing job for us.

“Last year, it was a struggle. Like I told DJ, that comes with being the quarterback. Comes with being the head coach. You get a lot of praise and you get all the criticism. That just comes with it. That’s part of — comes with the territory so to speak.”