Clemson’s new defensive coordinator will not be on the road recruiting. Here’s why.
CLEMSON—The night of Jan. 14, Dabo Swinney was driving new defensive coordinator Tom Allen and his family around Clemson. They were out until 11 p.m., a full moon in the sky as they visited the famous hill in Memorial Stadium and Howard’s Rock that sits atop it.These are things Allen, a former Big Ten head coach and coordinator, had never seen before. But his picturesque Clemson tour was short-lived.The very next morning, Swinney and Allen were back to work. They convened a coaching meeting for Allen to shake hands with his new colleagues but also review Clemson’s targets in the 2026 class and beyond.Most of the Tigers’ coaches, including Swinney, are hitting the road to recruit this week. Allen will not.”He’s going to always be with the team,” Swinney said. “I really, really like that.”
Swinney not only introduced Allen to the media on Jan. 15 but also unveiled what’s next. His new hire will very much be the head coach of the defense, which fits with developing trends in the sport.
The NCAA allows college football programs to designate 10 coaches as off-campus recruiters. Allen won’t be one of them, and Swinney anticipates doing the same with offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.It will be Ben Boulware, the fiery ex-Clemson linebacker who returned as a coaching intern in 2024, who will burst into recruits’ homes and pitch Allen’s attacking style of defense. Swinney anticipates assistant quarterbacks coach Tajh Boyd will sub for Riley and sell their “Dirt Raid” scheme.
When the Tigers open spring ball, Allen will coach linebackers because they are a direct conduit of his scheme. But Allen’s son Thomas, an ex-IU linebacker and analyst for Penn State, will join Boulware in really coaching the position while the elder Allen focuses more broadly on the entire defense.
“He’ll run the defense from the linebacker room, but he’s going to be involved in everything; coach everything,” Swinney said. “Make sure we’re connected like we need to be, detailed like we need to be, and go from there.”Clemson intends to use last year’s NCAA rule change, which lifted the cap on the number of coaches who can work directly with athletes on the field, as a means to accelerate Allen’s defense.
The Tigers need all the help they can get because last season was one of the poorest in recent memory from a tackling and gap-integrity standpoint. Clemson’s opponents rushed for 4.7 yards per carry.
“Tackling” just so happens to be a key word in Allen’s three-pronged philosophy, which he repeats often.
“We’re going to make a big deal of takeaways, tackling, and effort,” Allen said. “Guys that can get to the football at a high level of speed, and when they get there, they have a violent way to finish.”
Allen will be involved in recruiting that speed, whether that’s on FaceTime calls or during on-campus visits. But the time he saves not being on the road in January will be invested in the current roster.
He will sit down with every defender, notepad in hand, and jot down details about their families and interests. Allen will ask for the three most important things in their lives so he can connect with them and motivate.
He will be a presence in the weight room and on the field, watching offseason workouts to see who pushes through adversity and who athletically fits where in his 4-2-5 scheme.
Swinney likes four-man fronts, as opposed to three, because of the defensive linemen Clemson has been able to recruit”Big people beat little people,” Swinney said.
Swinney is interested to see how Allen utilizes the bigger and stronger athletes of a Clemson, like he did Penn State, following years where he the most of what he had at IU.
Allen has evolved his scheme slightly as a result. He’d utilize one “bull” — or hybrid linebacker/defensive end — at IU because it was hard to attract more than one. But he had one on each side at PSU, and it was harder for offenses to predict which edge defender was rushing and which was dropping into coverage.
He also has a hybrid safety/linebacker, called a “husky” at IU, or a “lion” at PSU, which is similar to the role Isaiah Simmons had at Clemson in the late 2010s.
Allen doesn’t care what the position is called with the Tigers, whether it’s a “nickel” or an animal of some kind. But he does want to get film cut-ups ready for his players so he can start teaching techniques this spring.
“I have to put these things on fast forward,” Allen said. “We’ll get all those things ready because, at the end of the day, we’ve got to have both the coaches and the players aligned.”
There is an urgency about Allen, which isn’t all that surprising for an excitable coach whose voice is often raspy because of how much he yells.
The 54-year-old former linebacker wants to tackle the problem of the Tigers’ defense, which a lighter recruiting load will allow.
Swinney and Allen, in the hours after a moonlit Clemson tour, have been sorting out their plans. But the head coach was less urgent about one question.
Will Allen call plays from the sidelines in the fall? Or will he be caged in the coaches’ box?
“He can sit in the stands. He can climb the Oculus. He can get up there with the tail-wagging (tiger) on the jumbotron. I could care less,” Swinney said, smiling, “as long as we stop ’em.”
