The Clemson Dubcast

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott has coached on some of the highest-pressure stages imaginable -- five consecutive playoff trips from 2015 to 2019, four national championship games, and a load of other important games during the regular seasons.

He finds that the pressure of coaching 4-and-under youth soccer brings its own stresses as other parents look on at practices and games.

Scott, fired from South Florida late last year, is enjoying the good life after he moved his family back to Clemson. The buyout in his contract gave him the luxury of taking his sweet time as he evaluates what's next for him. And the time with his wife and two young children is definitely sweet.

Scott joins the podcast to reflect on what that next step might be and when it might happen. But he says he honestly has no clue right now because he's too busy making up for time lost when he was grinding away working 80-hour weeks and dealing with the non-stop stresses and pressures of coaching.

Scott shares his favorite recruiting story, which involved a campus visit by Tony Steward. A hotel room was booked for Steward, but Scott ended up having to pull an intoxicated Clemson fan out of the room and re-make the bed just in time for Steward's arrival.

Scott also gives his assessment of the state of college football with NIL and the transfer portal, where he thinks things are headed, and how he thinks Dabo Swinney will adapt to the rapidly changing landscape.

 

David Pollack

David Pollack spent more than a decade carving a stellar reputation as a no-nonsense, entertaining presence with ESPN's college football coverage.

And then he received a call this past offseason that he couldn't believe:

He was laid off with a large group of other prominent personalities as Disney and The Worldwide Leader continue to grapple with the effects of cord-cutting and over-leveraging with TV contracts that were signed during more prosperous times.

Pollack joins The Clemson Dubcast to reflect on how he quickly pivoted to appreciating the good that came from his termination -- it allowed him to spend more time at his home in the Athens area with his wife and children ages 15 and 13. It allowed him to sit around on Saturdays and watch college football as a fan.

Pollack is an assistant coach at North Oconee High School and a mentor to Clemson freshman Khalil Barnes. The two talk almost every day, and their connection is rooted more in their Christianity than what takes place on the football field.

Pollack said there's no mystery at all as to why Barnes ended up at Clemson.

"He wanted to go to a place that was going to push him not just on the field but off the field. He's been telling me about some of the speakers they have come in, and what they're going through and what they talk about, and how the coaches are. He loves the atmosphere.

"If you're going to talk about culture ... that's Dabo and Clemson. It's a unique place. It's a unique set of values. It's a unique system. With that and Clemson's big-time program and big-time success, it made it pretty easy for KB."

Pollack said Dabo Swinney is one of the few coaches with whom he has a meaningful relationship. He said Swinney was one of the people who called to offer him support after he was laid off.

Though Pollack thinks highly of Swinney as a man, leader and coach, he does point out that he was one of the first analysts to say years ago that Swinney and Clemson were risking falling behind by not making more use of the transfer portal. He believes Swinney will make more use of it moving forward.

 

 

Matt Bockhorst

Matt Bockhorst was one of many people close to the team who bought into the offseason optimism about Garrett Riley and Cade Klubnik helping transform the mindset of not just the offense but the entire program.

There was an air of rejuvenation and confidence that was palpable when Bockhorst made a trip to Clemson to watch an August scrimmage.

Very little of that materialized under the lights in Clemson's nightmarish season-opening 28-7 loss at Duke on Monday night.

The litany of critical gaffes on both sides of the ball has many people questioning the mental makeup of this program, and Bockhorst is one of them.

"They're on their heels now," he said. "I think they're all rolling into the football facility today questioning everything about the preparation they've done for the last nine months. Like: 'Are we fraudsters just acting like we deserve to be here?' ...

"If they didn't have an edge before, they better get one soon. Otherwise we've got really big problems."

Bockhorst was an offensive lineman for Clemson from 2017 to 2021.

 

 

Lucas Glover

After a crucial penalty call went against Clemson late in a 2007 loss at Georgia Tech, Lucas Glover threw his remote control through the screen of his brand-new HD television set.

Yeah, you might say he's a big fan of his alma mater.

Big enough to have subscribed to Tigerillustrated.com for two decades and made it a significant part of his daily routine.

Big enough to pop in and post to the website's message board from time to time (his handle is @JudgeSchmails) to thank fans for their support, or to weigh in on the latest developments on the PGA Tour.

Glover joins the podcast to talk about his spectacular summer run on the Tour, his disappointment for not being selected to the Ryder Cup, and his successful overcoming of the putting yips that tormented him for close to a decade.

 

Holden Thorp

As the chancellor at the University of North Carolina from 2008 to 2013, Holden Thorp was front-and-center for some seismic athletics-related events.

When he took the job he thought his main mission from trustees was to make UNC more like MIT academically. He soon learned otherwise as an NCAA scandal unfolded in Chapel Hill involving fake classes and a compromised tutor for the Tar Heels' football program who was also the nanny for coach Butch Davis.

"What I learned was that the relative priority of athletics compared to academics at Carolina was a lot different from what I thought," Thorp said. "There was always a folklore and a legend that academics and integrity were put above winning. North Carolina made it 50 years without having to confront these things. Part of that was just dumb luck: The NCAA never picked up on some things that were going on. And part of it was excellent management as well.

"But the truth is Carolina was winning the same way a lot of schools win. The weren't magically not having a lot of the same problems that all these other schools did. The house of cards came tumbling down, and everyone in Chapel Hill realized the school is really no different than any other school that's wildly successful in athletics, or wants to be wildly successful in athletics."

Thorp was also chancellor when the ACC added Pittsburgh and Syracuse in 2011. He said that North Carolina could've gone to the SEC at that time, but that the additions of Notre Dame as a part-time member and Louisville helped bind the conference together with a Grant of Rights initially signed in 2013.

Thorp said there was great debate in the ACC about the Louisville addition. A significant number of presidents preferred Connecticut because of the Huskies' basketball profile, but Thorp and then-commissioner John Swofford persuaded enough schools to vote for Louisville.

Thorp was the chairman of the ACC's Council of Presidents at the time.

"UConn and Cincinnati were trying to get us to invite them," he said. "Clemson and Florida State were adamant that they wanted Louisville. Swofford and I felt that keeping those two happy with football was critically important. So we got everybody on board with adding Louisville."

Thorp is the editor in chief of the Science family of journals.

 

 

 

 

Jim Barker

As not just the former president of Clemson University, but the former chairman of the ACC's Council of Presidents, Jim Barker had a front-row seat to many of the major conference realignment movements of the past.

That institutional knowledge gives him some interesting and poignant perspective of the current shifts taking place -- and the possibly existential crisis facing the ACC.

Two years ago, in the midst of Texas and Oklahoma announcing their departure for the SEC, Barker said he hoped the ACC would make a big, bold move. His idea at the time was merging with the Pac-12 to form the "American Coast Conference."

That never happened. And Barker now finds himself gravely concerned for not just the ACC but entire enterprise of college athletics.

"I think we need to blow the whole thing up and start from scratch," he said. "But I don't know how we do that because there's no leader to do it."

Barker served as Clemson's president from 1999 to 2013.

 

 

Kyle Richardson and Mickey Conn

We present the final two installments of our interviews with Clemson's assistant coaches.

Kyle Richardson is entering his second season as the Tigers' tight ends coach and passing-game coordinator. Even after losing Davis Allen, he has high hopes for a group that includes Jake Briningstool, Sage Ennis and Josh Sapp.

Mickey Conn is in charge of a safety group that brings back a wealth of experience from last season. Conn is confident that the talent and seasoning on the back end will produce much better results this season after the Tigers were routinely beaten over the top last season.

Clemson begins its season at Duke on Labor Day night.

 

 

Mike Reed and Lemanski Hall

Clemson's assistant coaches recently visited with the media for an extended period.

We present the uncut audio from the sessions with Mike Reed and Lemanski Hall.

Reed is preparing for his 11th season as Clemson's cornerbacks coach, and is a valuable member of the Tigers' recruiting staff.

Hall has worked for Dabo Swinney for eight seasons and welcomes back Xavier Thomas and Justin Mascoll at defensive end.

Clemson's defense is trying to atone for an inconsistent 2022 season and become a dominant group in 2023.

The Tigers start August camp on Friday.

Nick Eason and C.J. Spiller

Clemson assistant coaches Nick Eason and C.J. Spiller sit down for extended interviews to discuss the 2023 season.

Eason, in his second year as defensive tackles coach, oversees a loaded position group that includes freshman phenom Peter Woods. The interior defensive line was also bolstered by the return of Tyler Davis and Ruke Orhorhoro after both seriously considered going to the NFL.

Spiller is preparing for his third season as running backs coach, and in Will Shipley and Phil Mafah he has potentially the top running back tandem in college football.

 

Thomas Austin and Tyler Grisham

We present the uncut audio from this week's media sessions featuring Clemson's coaches.

Thomas Austin, preparing for his second season in charge of the Tigers' offensive line, reflects on the quest for depth up front after the line had very little of it the past two seasons.

Austin also shares what's different under new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, who is committed to running the ball after posting an even mix of run and pass last season at TCU.

Tyler Grisham has faced some heat from fans in the midst of underperforming at the receiver position the past two seasons.

He seems convinced that Clemson will be much better on this outside this season, so much that he predicts the Tigers will use more 10 personnel (four receivers) than they have in years.

Grisham and Austin both played on the 2008 Clemson team that witnessed the midseason firing of Tommy Bowden, the promotion of Dabo Swinney from receivers coach to interim head coach, to Swinney securing the job and putting Clemson on a course to greatness not many people envisioned when he took over.