Clemson legend among support staff additions
Clemson made several changes to its support staff this offseason, including bringing back a Tigers legend.
Dabo Swinney announced on Wednesday that Da’Quan Bowers is back on Clemson’s staff. Bowers will work in defensive player development for the Tigers after spending the past three years at USF.
Bowers coached as an assistant at USF with former Bulls head coach Jeff Scott, who also left Clemson to go to USF after the 2019 season. Bowers served as the defensive line coach for the Bulls.
He previously worked alongside Todd Bates as a grad assistant with the Tigers in 2018 and 2019.
Prior to getting into coaching, Bowers was a dominant player for the Tigers.
He earned All-American honors in 2010 after posting 67 tackles and 26 tackles for loss. He led the nation in sacks that year with 15.5.
Bowers also won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as college football’s top defensive player in 2010, as well as the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation’s top defensive end. He was drafted in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft and played five seasons in the National Football League.
Other Clemson support staff changes
Swinney also announced several other support staff changes on Wednesday, including an additional staff member coming from USF.
Will Gilchrist will work with the Clemson special teams unit moving forward after previously working with the Bulls.
Gilchrist was a quality control analyst with an emphasis on special teams at USF. He also spent time as a defensive grad assistant at Arkansas.
The positions for Bowers and Gilchrist opened up after other support staff members left.
“Kavell Conner got the d-coordinator job at West Florida. Kaleb Nobles got the head coaching job,” Swinney said. “So we created a spot there. So it was awesome to be able to bring DaQuan back. He’s been running his own room at South Florida these past three years. So getting him back is really good.”
As for other staff changes, Swinney announced that Clemson has hired a new nutritionist.
Meaghan Turcotte has been hired as the team’s head nutritionist after spending last year as the head nutritionist at Miami. The Clemson grad spent the previous two years as the Assistant Director of Football Nutrition for the University of Georgia, prior to joining the Hurricanes staff.
Swinney also announced that JT Bandy has been hired as an operations assistant.
Swinney added that another staff addition will be announced at a later date, but he was not ready to reveal it yet.
He did say that the new staff addition has ties to new Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, who was introduced during a press conference on Wednesday at Clemson.