Episode 005:
Experience Matters With Eric Newton: Jeff Scott on Coaching College Football and New Beginnings – 005

Welcome to another Experience Matters with Eric Newton. I’m Eric Newton. And today we’re lucky enough to have Jeff Scott with us. Thanks for, for, joining the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Yep. you’ve been, you’ve been a popular guy, for a very long time. And, you know, it’s, I’m, it’s, I’m honored to have you on the, have you on the, on the show. And, I’m sure everybody’s going to be interested to hear, some of your stories and some of the things we’re going to talk about today.

So let’s just dive right in. so always try to get a little bit of background from everybody that comes on with the podcast, just to, just to kind of give everybody a feel for how you got to where you are. So tell it, tell the viewers like, like how you got, how you got started, you know, then birth to the now.

Yeah, I’ll try to keep it under an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, you know, was born in Clifton. Yeah. It’s just this version. That’s right. Now I was born in Florida and then, actually, whenever I was, was that Tallahassee? actually I was born in a small town, Arcadia, Florida. Okay. It was about two hours south of Orlando. And, whenever I was one, my dad got his first college coaching job at the Citadel. So we actually went up and, he coached at the Citadel for Art Baker.

for one year. then, you know, back then, when my dad was a graduate assistant there, suddenly all the hours were really bad. The pay was really bad. And there’s a funny story that the athletic director, where my mom and dad are from, down in Arcadia, athletic director for the high school, called my mom and trying to get a hold of my dad. And they wanted to offer him the head job at the high school. And my dad was at work. My mom said, we’ll take it.

We’ve been there for one year. We moved back to a little small town Arcadia. My dad coached high school ball there for a couple of years. then whenever I was three years old, we moved to Tallahassee. so, 1983 and my dad started out as a graduate assistant there. And then he was the tie dance coach and he was the recruiting coordinator and eventually the offensive line coach and a offensive coordinator. So, yeah, that was a great time as a young kid to grow up. mean,

Bobby Bowden was the head coach. Absolutely incredible man. I tell people all the time, Coach Twain has a lot of the same characteristics and traits that Coach Bowden had. so, you know, my elementary school was actually about 200 yards behind the Florida State practice fields. So in the fall, as soon as the bell would ring, you know, from really the second grade on, I would run across over to the football practice field. I’d hang it out there with the players and

You know, mostly playing with the kickers because there was that don’t do anything during practice. So other tackling dummies, all that then after practice is over, I’d go up with my dad and they’d watch film and then I’d go on with them that night. So I really kind of grew up around college football and I was on the sidelines since I was about seven years old. And so just a lot of great memories from that. And then, you know, also got to watch my dad kind of grow with his career and

And he was the offense coordinator when Florida State won their first Nashville chain every chip there in 92, 93. And then from that, he got the head job at University of South Carolina. So I was in the middle of my seventh grade year in school when we moved to Columbia. And we were very excited about that. Got to Columbia and ended up going to Ammon school there. So I spent my really all my high school years there in Columbia. And then

You know, after, my dad’s last season, he gets, fired for not winning enough games there, South Carolina. And, really not sure where we’re going to go. Cause you always kind of think that the best things are going to happen and you’re going to continue to have those success. And, and I can remember I was a senior in high school. was committed to go play quarterback at Fermi and, my dad actually got fired the day of my senior sports banquet and it would, you know, back then I actually.

I don’t know why my dad did this, but they made him go to a press conference that he did after he got fired to talk to the media and all those things. And I remember soon as we finished that press conference at Williams Bryce, we had to walk across the street to the fairgrounds and I had to walk into my senior football banquet. know, so just a very tough time at a critical age there, 17, 18 years old. And I’ll never forget the night before my dad got let go, he called my brother and I back into his.

a little sunroom in the nearest bedroom. And he was telling, I have younger brother, John, who’s three years younger than myself. And he was telling both of us what was getting ready to happen the next day. And, you know, he shared Jeremiah 29, 11, that the Lord has great plans for us. And we have to trust in that. And I remember it, you know, 18 years old. I didn’t really want to hear that at the time. I was probably questioning God a little bit, like, you know, my dad’s…

used his platform as a college coach to share Christ and speak at a lot of churches and do all these things. And in my mind, it’s like he’s supposed to have success, you he wasn’t having it. And so, you know, I was pretty better there for a few days. And then three days after he got let go at South Carolina, Tommy Bowden got hired at Clemson, obviously with the Bowden connection, my dad working for Body Bowden, Tommy, you know, asked my dad if he

come to Clemson and be the tight ends coach. And, the coaching salaries were a lot different back in 1998. You know, you could take a couple zeros off. so my dad was definitely a position where he needed to go coach somewhere. And, and, so he accepted the job to come to Clemson and, was fired up about that. A lot of people ask me, you know, how hard was that going from being a diehard gamecock for five years to, to being a Clemson tiger. And I’m like, well, you know, when they fire your dad, it’s actually really easy.

And, kind of fun. And so another quick, funny story about that is, well, obviously I knew that we were going to Clemson a couple of days before it got announced in the media. And, I was playing in the north south football all-star game and, saw a war Clemson hat there and Steve Cheney who played quarterback for my dad a few years earlier there at South Carolina. Steve was actually coaching the all-star game. So he sees me get out of the car and I’ve got this Clemson hat on.

And he doesn’t know, you know, a dad’s going to the club. So he thinks I’m just doing it. And, know, be smart and be able to smarty or something. it’s like, come on, come on, Jeff, really? I’m like, no, it gets better. I was like, dad’s doing a coach day next year. he’d be like, no way. And so from that, I think he’s still had his long hair for sure. But, you know, so Tommy Bouton, you know, he heard that I was going to play quarterback.

at Furman and he actually offered me a walk on opportunity to come to Clemson. And I actually had shoulder surgery after my junior high school. So, and I was still able to play quarterback, but I knew, you know, how many times you throw in college two days and all that, that I wouldn’t have the durability to do that. And I probably have to move to receiver. anyways, coach Bowden asked me to come to walk on to Clemson. I knew since I was 11 years old that I wanted to be a college football coach.

And, you know, coach Bowden comes in Tulane, Richard Rodriguez was the offensive coordinator. There were 12 and over the year, fortunately. So I said, you know, going to Clemson being around those coaches would probably help me down the road. I’ll be the college coach. So I came to Clemson and, you know, ended up meet my wife, Sarah. she was a freshman at Clemson whenever we met and we dated all the way through and, graduated with a degree in secondary of math. And, Sarah and I graduated, in.

2003 in May, we got married in June and then I started teaching and coaching the high school ball down in Columbia in July. So got after pretty quickly there. And that was at Hammond, right? Actually, no, I went to Ridgeview High School. I was at Ridgeview for two years and I was coaching quarterbacks and receivers. My second year there, I was able to be the offensive coordinator. And the principal where I was at Ridgeview, she got…

the principal job or brand new high school in the district, Blythwood High School. And Blythwood was a $50 million school. had a $5 million football stadium. you know, Richland District 2 where Richview was was growing so much that they created this other school. So Dr. Budden goes to the new school to be the principal. And before she left, she came out of my portable because that’s where they took the first year teachers like that was. Her second year teacher, was in portable P26.

in the back parking lot. The only thing good about it was I to practice and I had like 10 feet and I was on a practice field for football in the afternoon. But she came by my portable and told me that she was going be the principal at Blackwood. And she said, you know, we’d love to have you, you know, she, she wanted me to apply for the head coaching job. And I was only 24 years old. I was two years out of school. And I’m glad I didn’t say the first thing came out of my mind in my mind was like, are you crazy? I’m just trying to figure out how to teach math tech and focus on white outs over here. But I said, yes, ma’am. I’d love to.

And, so there’s like over 120 coaches applied to the job. Coaches from all over the Southeast. think there were eight coaches that are one state championships at different schools. And, she, she goes with the kind of an out of the box hire iron me as a 24 year old. And so, you know, I think anytime that you’re kind of moving up in your profession, there’s always that kind of one person outside of your family that really sees something special in you and gives you that opportunity. so, Dr. Sharon Button was definitely that person for me.

I’ll go to Blackwood the next year. I’m the head coach, I get hired tire staffs. We only had ninth and 10th graders. So we played in JV season that year and we were the largest team in 3A. actually Chuck Jordan out at Conway tried to talk Dr. Budden into us going to 4-1 because we were eventually going to be there in two years. And he was trying to get down into 3A. She asked me about that. said, absolutely not. If we’re in 3A, we could be in 3A. Let’s be in 3A. So we were the largest team in 3A.

So when I defeated our JV season, my second season or second year at the Blackwood was our first varsity season. And really what I knew at the time as a coach was passing game. And we were just fortunate that we had a great quarterback. He was kind of a 5’11”, Tim Tebow type guy. And then I had some great wide outs. So we ended up losing our first varsity game to Ridgeview. All the Ridgeview guys were mad that they got left behind at Ridgeview with the old uniforms and all that, old school.

You pulled some of the rich players. The majority of our team came from a coach there at Ridgeview. We just happened to get some of the better players that came over. And so we lost our first game to Ridgeview. And I’ll never forget, our principal called me into her office that next Monday, just asking about, you know, how I think the team’s going to be. And she says, if we can just have a winning record this year, that would be a great start. And I said, yes, man, I think we will. And then the next week we won our first game.

And next week we beat rich Northeast. had like six division one players that were going to Notre Dame, South Carolina. We beat them on a crazy double pass, triple pass actually. And so we, we kept winning and we ended up winning 14 games in a row and won the state championship, three day state championship in our first varsity season on the last second field goal, his time expired at Lee’s price. So that was a pretty incredible experience as a.

as a young coach, think we were the first team in Columbia to win a state championship in 20 years. And then I think we’re the first school to ever win a state championship in their first season, maybe. And one other funny story that I like to tell about that. after the game’s over, the superintendent is coming by. He’s the guy putting medals over all the coaches and players. And I mean, it’s probably like 11 o’clock at night because we’re the late game.

And the superintendent was named with Dr. Hefner and he gives to me, says, coach Scott, you know, on behalf of Rich’s school district too, we really appreciate, you know, the state championship season. And he said, there’s a token of our appreciation. He pulls out an envelope out of his pocket and hands it to me. says, Hey, this is a token of our appreciation. So I take it and put it in my back pocket. I’m saying thank you. And in my mind, I’m like, that’s nice. It’s probably a $500 check, thousand dollar check, something like that.

So we get home late, late that night. And I mean, I’ve got data rage still all over my clothes. like 2 a.m. writing. And I pull out this envelope and I open it up and it was a $20 gift card to Chillies. And I told my wife, I was like, baby, we’ve made the mountain top. was like, I can buy you, I can buy an appetizer and maybe your drink, but that’ll be, I’ll have to buy my own meal on the other side. So those were a humble beginnings. And so.

I laughed because I asked my dad after that season, like, what do I do? And my dad’s comments kind of jokingly was, you know, leave before they figure out you’re not really that good of a coach. You can always come back if you always have a job. So two weeks later, Bobby Bentley, who I have a lot of respect for, Coach Bentley was one of the state championships year after year of course at Burns while we won this one in 3A. he had taken the head job at Presbyterian College.

And, PC was trying to make the move from division two to FCS. And so he offered me the wide receivers job. And, so I ended up taking that job after the Blythood season was a PC for one year. I didn’t realize. Yeah. and there’s a lot of coaches that come out of Presbyterian. They actually had pretty good, coaching, training there, but really enjoyed that. That was my first time having my own wide receiver run the first time going the road, recruiting. And, it was a lot of fun. And then after that season,

You know, Clemson had a graduate assistant position open the topic. I was still the head coach. My dad’s still coaching at Clemson. And so I actually remember where I was. It was the day of the South Carolina Clemson game in Columbia. And we were in some little Ramada in off two nights road. Wait, it was a night game. So dad and I are sitting in his hotel room and watching football games. And I said, dad, I think I’d like to apply for the graduate assistant job here at Clemson and leave PC to go to Clemson.

He’s like, absolutely not. Cause I was making pretty good money at Presbyterian and as a GA, make like hardly nothing. They just pay for your school. And my dad was like, you you’re going to come be a GA for two years. Then you’re going to try to get the job you got right now. I was like, no, I said, you know, I really want to all the college coaches that I’ve studied had all been graduate assistants. And I said, I don’t want to regret that I kind of took a short cut out by going straight from high school to a college. want to be a GA.

So, he let me go talk to coach Bowden after the season was over. And, and I just had, I don’t know what it was. mean, obviously, my face is important to me. think it was kind of God nudging me that way. There could be something down the road. but you know, coach about coach, coach bow to just sign a new contract after Arkansas came, you know, came to get him in the off season, I guess. then, coach Sweeney is just a receivers coach. Now those five years that I was.

Gone from Clemson. didn’t play for coach Sweeney. I played for Rick Stock still and I love coach stock, but, soon as I left Clemson to go to Ridgeview, that’s when coach Sweeney came in. But for those five years that I was gone, I came back and working with coach swinging cause wide outs was what I played. So that’s where I went. And then, I sat in a lot of his meetings, watch practice. So he kind of got to know me through those years. But anyways, I come back to be a GA, and.

January of 2008, I’m actually working on the defensive side of the ball. P T Chris Champs, there was play ups. actually got to coach, P T I give them our time about that now when I seen around town. but so I worked with the defensive backs, try to, half that year. And then one other story that I like to tell that’s meaningful to me is that summer before that, first fall of eight, whenever I’m a GA.

Again, I’d worked with Coach Swinney, ran the football camps, even as he was an assistant coach, he was in charge of all the football camps. So again, the prettiest five years I’d come and work camp with him with the light outs. Now I’m actually on staff. so Coach Swinney gave me more responsibility. And so in July, right after the camps were over, Coach Swinney called me one night and just said, I want to thank you. You did a great job. Helped me kind of run the football camps and a lot of things. And he said,

He said that when he became a head coach one day, I was going to be the first guy hired. I said, well, coach, that means a lot. Thank you. And hung up to my wife. I’m like, what the conversation was, like, hey, coach Swain is a really good recruiter, good position coach. Two, three years from now, he’ll probably be OC somewhere. Three, four years after that, he’ll be a head coach. So yeah, we kind of got one line in the water right there. Right. And three months later, October 13th, 2008, Coach Bowden.

resigns and coach 20 is named the interim head coach. And I just, again, happened to be at the right spot at the right time. Cubs Sweeney calls me that day and says, what you doing? And I said, well, I’m down here at firehouse. So it’s used to a firehouse over here downtown. said, I’m seltzer for the coaches. He said, he said, do need to hurry up and run back? And, so I came back and met with him. He told me what happened. And because he was going to move to be the interim head coach for the rest of year, he wanted me to, to coach the white outs the rest of the year.

And we had six games left. And he said, even though people around here don’t think I’m going to get this job, he said, we’re going to get this job. And when I get this job, I’m going to keep you as the light ups coach and make you a recruitment coordinator. So I’m all excited. I go home, tell my wife again, Sarah’s an alum. It was one of my goals. whenever I graduated from Clemson, Billy D, who was actually running a victory hall at the time, had all the seniors write down kind of your 10 year goals from when you graduated. And one of my goals was to come back to Clemson as an assistant coach within 10 years.

And so I was, I was meeting that at that point. So I was all excited, told Sarah all about that night. It’s about 11 o’clock. I’ll never forget ESPN ticker that night said Clemson wide receivers coach Dabo Sweeney named interim head coach today. It then went on and said zero of the last 29 mid season, interim head coaches have gone on to be named full time head coach in college football history.

So I looked at Sarah and I’m like, all right, one out of 30, right? Like those are better odds than the lottery. So you’re saying I have a chance. that’s right. So we ended up winning four of the last six games. gets named, obviously, full-time head coach on December 1st. He makes me a receivers coach, recruit coordinator. And so that started a 12-year time there with Coach Sweeney. And man, what an incredible opportunity, really just by his side.

for those entire 12 years and watching us, you know, build the program and, and being a part of that climb was awesome. And really going back to kind of what my dad did at Florida State was very similar with Bobby Brown and what I got to do with Coach Swaney here at Plumpton. And then obviously with my dad being on staff, that was an extra bonus. It was, it was awesome. And then after seven years being recruiting coordinator and wide outs coach, Chad Morris left and Coach Swaney named.

me and Tony Elliott go offensive coordinators. And so we got to do that for five years and just be here with some incredible players, incredible run. And then, you know, after that in December of 2019, I started getting some calls and I really started getting calls the year before, but really wanted to wait for the right opportunity. And then a year versus South Florida called Michael Kelly, who I had known because Michael had worked for the ACC office.

for several years and I got to know him through that. He was the AD at South Florida. And so we went down to Tampa for three years and two months after I got there, COVID happened and the whole world changed. And I enjoyed my time down there. never, we were able to make a lot of progress as far as changing the overall culture and the building. We were able to raise $20 million to build a brand new indoor facility and kind of get started on a stadium project.

Unfortunately, the success on the field didn’t come as quickly as we all wanted it to. But, know, again, looking back at my dad’s career, things happened for a reason. And, you know, that the opportunity to be there at South Florida and the contract and those things put me in a position, you know, really at 42 years old to be able to decide what do want to do? Where do you want to live? And Sarah and I talked about it and we said, you know, let’s go home to Clemson and

Let’s raise our family right there in Clemson. So we came back, got back here in January of 2023. And I have a daughter Savannah who will turn nine next week. And then my son Hunter is four. And so now to be able to return to Clemson, a place that again, so special to my family and I, you little did we know when my dad got let go at South Carolina. And again, I go back to him.

you know, kind of sharing that verse, Jeremiah 29, 11 to me and my brother, leveled it, I know that that move would end up opening up, you know, a door of, you know, the best, you know, 25 years in our lives and really changed our lives. And so now to be able to be back in Clemson, not currently working all the hours and all that on the staff, to be doing stuff in real estate and being able to do things with people like yourself.

It really just to know that we’re going to raise our family right here at Clemson is an incredible, blessing. Yeah. That’s a, that’s an incredible story. There’s a lot to that. Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard you tell, tell us some of the stories over the years and they’re great stories. mean, things that, you know, I can sit here and chat with you about for, hours. but to be respectful of your time, I’m going to, try to.

you know, put it on a couple of things that I’m, that I’ve been, I’ve been curious about. So, tell me who in your career has had the biggest impact on you. would assume that your dad has been a very good advisor. I he’s a, he’s a resource for you. and then like, who have you, how did you model your, your career after? Well, I would say the two.

Most influential people in my life is really those three. Obviously starting off with my dad, again, knowing at 11 years old that I wanted to be a college coach. you know, and then being able to, again, Bobby Balladin did something back then that a lot of coaches back in that era did not do, which he allowed the coaches families to have full access and to be able to get practice and meetings. And you see that now at Clemson and it’s more accepted now than maybe it was back then, but

You know, having that opportunity to have that access really is what, you know, maybe got that in my mind that I want to be a coach and I want to be able to have an impact on young men. So my dad obviously, been my number one mentor and, and, you know, a of people think it’s like these one or two conversations that I’ve had, but it’s the all the time conversations we’ve had. so, you know, I feel very blessed that I got to grow up and watch his career and be, I made every one of his games, actually held the, courts.

for his headsets when he was the head coach at South Carolina. They didn’t have wireless headsets back then. So had check course, I kind of hold his board. So I had a front row seat to watch him as a assistant. He didn’t get here what he was saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that and being the huddle, timeouts and all those things at a young age. Actually Clemson tried to kick me off one year, that’s a whole nother story. so my dad would definitely be the number one. Number two would be my high school.

football coach, Coach Phil Sandifer. There, him and he was the head baseball coach and a head football coach. And he was kind of an old school guy, very disciplined, very organized, very structured. And there’s a lot of things that I took from playing for Coach Sandifer those four years, I think that helped mold me as a coach. And then finally, you know, one of the biggest ones outside of my family would be Coach Sweeney.

Again, those five years, whenever I was not at Clemson, coming and sitting in his meet and run, taking notes and learning wide receiver play, and then having a frank rate seat there for 12 years and being able to kind of watch the buildup of the program and learned a lot of things, obviously, technique wise about wide receivers. mean, pretty much everything that I’ve learned. I learned some things, obviously, as a player there with Coach Stock still, but as a coach having the coach mentality.

having the coach had on it would all be from a coach Sweeney and, know, I just, again, very blessed that two of the biggest mentors for my family has been Aubrey Bowden and Dabo Sweeney. Those are two people that, you know, led the right way, obviously extraordinary, hall of fame coaches, but also hall of fame men with, how the type of husband and father.

And example there, and then also, you know, leading with their other Christian faith and beliefs on them. So I feel very blessed, you know, with the impact, having all those years around coach 20 and now I’m two doors down from coach 20. So still, I get to see him a good bit. So besides, well, from a, from a player standpoint, who, who was your.

Well, I hate to say it. I’m sure paper. I don’t want to say, want to say which, which player that you coach was the best fun. Yeah. Yeah. and that is hard because I have somebody, you got a lot of players. Yeah. Yeah. We had a good number. Yeah. Good, good number of guys, but no, that, that was, I mean, that was incredible. Honestly, it was a blessing to be able to have a chance to coach. I mean,

You know, Deandre Hopkins, obviously incredible. I literally have stories on all of these guys that I could talk for hours and hours. you know, but, know, I would say, you know, obviously Hunter in for us a very unique story. mean, I, I literally told another actress, he came to football campus, senior year of high school. And I pretty much thought of, you’re a good little player, but you is you, if you want to go to App State or one of those have added.

If you decide at the end of it, you don’t like any of your offers, you want to come here to walk on and they come see us. And, actually there’s a little funny story. can tell an honor that Clemson Davis probably haven’t heard before. So that was literally the deal. Cause one thing that, you know, you learn as a coach is sometimes the walk-ons and obviously 100, his family are not in this category, but a lot of times the walk-ons and the walk-ons families are some of them more high maintenance people because, know, they’re not going to play a lot.

They want to play and they’re, they were, all these types of things. And so I’ve learned through the years not to kind of overly recruit walk-ons because, you know, there’s a lot of maintenance that goes with that. And so I was just kind of dead honest with him, you know, and Hunter was an option quarterback in high school. So they didn’t have any film playing wide receiver. I he was a, maybe 150 panels, but he was a good kid, had a good reputation, great, dad, just great solid family.

think he had two brothers at Clemson, maybe the time. So again, summer camp, I said, Hunter, if you want to come walk on, hey, that’s great, but you don’t even have to let me know now. I’ll check in with you at the end of December, January, and you kind of weigh your options. And if you want to come, let us know. Well, I’m not going to name my buddy because I don’t want to embarrass him, but I have a really good friend of mine, still very close with me to this day. He was a GA with us at Clemson.

And, he was currently at that time he was coaching wide receivers at outstate. And, so I get a call from him in December of rent throws, and they had offered Hunter. get a call from my buddy. It’s like November, December of Hunter senior year. He’s like, Hey, Jeff, I need a favor. I’m like, all right, what’s that? He’s like, can you call Hunter rent row and start recruiting him harder? Like why he’s like, is my head coach really wants Hunter and my defensive coordinator.

and I have to play with Hunter’s dad with his college roommate at Walford. We only have one scholarship at App State and I really need a bigger guy, but they’re hung up on Renfrow. So if you can help me by kind of calling Renfrow and recruiting a little bit, I think he’ll come walk on with you and then I can take the big receiver that I need. I’m like, sure, okay. So I literally haven’t talked to Hunter since I came out of camp. So I start calling him, hey, how’s the season going? Congrats on a good year.

Hey, we’d love to have you can look for an official visit and all these type things. And so he comes up, we recruit him and he decides to come to Clemson. And so about five years later, Coach Satterfield, was at during that time was that coach, he was at, he came back to visit like the coaches come and visit all this things. It actually told him that story. He was not very happy when he heard that story.

To Hunter’s defense, I’ve told this story to Renfro several times. Number one, he gets mad at the position coach from out that he didn’t want him, know, because he knows him well. And then number two, he’s like, I was coming to Clemson anyways. Like this, I already knew I was coming. But I always laughed about that story there. But yeah, I I was just blessed to coach a lot of great wide outs. And the other thing that was very unique.

is that not only was there a very talented group, but they were very close. It was a really good chemistry and we didn’t have a lot of selfishness. You know, that can happen in this day and age with the transfer portal and NIL and all these different things. And what was a huge advantage for us during that time? And I think Clemson with these freshmen that I’m seeing now, they’re building towards having that similar depth that we had back in the day. But one thing that was so

had a big impact in our success in my opinion was during those years we had six to seven wide outs that could all play. And so I always would joke and say most teams have one and a half corners that they trust, right? In other words, there’s not many corners. A team is not going to play multiple quarters. So if we roll our guys, that’s what I did. I mean, I had, you know, I had three that would, the three starters and then I had three guys that played behind them.

And I would roll them so that the starters would play about 50 plays and the backups would play about 30 plays. We can only do that when you have really good backups, right? Kind of like, you know, Kentucky teams. I remember watching those and they, you know, just kind of do a whole sub all five guys. Well, we would do that with our wide outs. Well, the picture I would give our guys on that is imagine if we’re getting ready to go into a, a 10 round boxing fight and that other boxer, he’s going to be the only boxer that’s going to have to box all 10 rounds.

We got two guys in every round. We’re alternating who’s going in. But by the time we get to the 10th round, you’re going to be a lot fresher than he is and we’re going to be able to knock him out. So that quarter that rush four, four will plays 75 through 85. He’s going to be running four, seven, and you’re only going to have 30 plays or 45 plays. You’re still going to be running four, four. And so that really helped us kind of knock some people out. And then when you think of that over 15 games, get ready for a playoff.

You know, we had finished guys that in the 18 when we beat Alabama so bad, it was noticeable to me that their defense, they were worn down because they played every snap all season long. They’d already played back-ups and our guys were fresh because we had done that. So anyways, that, think having that depth and then having guys that were, you know, team players and then had the right chemistry, allowing us to do that. But yeah, there’s, there’s no doubt that was a.

it was a joke with people all the time and say, there’s a few years in there. could just kind of. Coverage with flip-flop some on and say, all right, but we still get them. Yeah. wasn’t a whole lot to it, you know, those guys all worked hard and I was really proud to see, their successes and then even the success that they’ve had, at the next level. So what was Dabo like? Pre, head coach, like how, what was he like in the end?

wide receivers. Yeah. Very intense. Same deal. Very intense. And honestly, I think that’s one thing that Teradon Phillips saw in coach Sweeney early on. mean, I’d go out and watch practice. mean, coach Sweeney was, I mean, he was on his guys. give Xavier Dye a lot of grief because I coached Xavier, Xavier actually coached wide outs for me at South Florida my last year there.

I was at practice, Xavier Dye’s first day of practice. He was a mid-year coming in from Burns and he was having trouble lining up in formations. And Coach Sweeney chased him around the whole practice, was throwing his hat at him. I mean, he was all over, but yeah, Coach Sweeney was very intense, but also he had, just like he does, just the same thing you see today, unbelievable relationships with his players. They wanted to play hard for him because…

They knew that he loved them and he wanted, really wanted their best. And, so it was awesome to kind of see that and see him, you know, use a lot of the same qualities that he has as a, as a, as a man, as a coach, and just really turning his like that into being one of the greatest head coaches of all time. When, when that was brought in Chad Morse, that was a big hire, you know, was a, a very, new and unique style of offense. I guess the Gus, Gus Malzahn.

Yeah. And coach Swinney doesn’t get enough credit on that. I that was a pivotal time in coach Swinney’s tenure. You know, as the head coach at Clemson, I think we were just a couple of years in, two years in and fan base. was a lot of like, all right, this thing’s better get better here in a hurry. And, you know, a lot of fans, I think wanted coach Swinney to get a higher route free gym and some of these other proven, you know, coordinators and coach Swinney again, he’s going to do it his way.

And Chad Morris had only been a college coach for one year. So think about this. Now I go back to Coach Swinney, he’s got everything on the line, right? He’s probably got one to two years max left. And he goes with the offensive coordinator that had one year of college experience. But he believed in him. he knew, what Coach Swinney knew, we had Sammy Watkins, we had De’Andre Hopkins already on the team. We had Sammy Watkins, Martavis Bryant coming in on that next class.

It comes to any new, Hey, we need an offense that can get balls to the playmakers. Cause sometimes, you know, you can, you know, have too much, too many things in your office. It’s hard to kind of work through the minutiae. just be simple. And really the, the offense coach Morris brought to, to close some was a fast pace, exciting offense. But the number one thing is it had a way to get the ball, the playmakers, and then freshmen could learn that and play early. And that’s one thing that we needed.

I think obviously the, the higher of Chad Morris and then the higher rent venables. mean, those, those two, absolutely improbable wires that, allow, you know, could, we need to continue taking Thompson to, to wear a very deep. And that, that style of offense was fun to watch. It was fast because that is something like before it was more of a, you know, you go up the line of scrimmage, you’re getting, you’re running the game clock down or down.

to a second or two and then you’re snapping the ball. This was like, knew at any moment we could score. I mean, you should go like that. I call it the Chick-fil-A myth, right? Chick-fil-A outsells all the other fast food restaurants. they outsell them and they only work six days a week and everybody else is working seven. But they know who they are, right? You’re either going to get a chicken biscuit in the morning or you’re going to get a chicken sandwich in the afternoon or chicken nuggets or chicken salad. And that’s it. Where you go to some other fast food and they’re trying to do, you know, 12 different things.

And so that’s kind of an analogy for us is like we knew in this offense, it was, I don’t want to use the word simple as in, know, that there wasn’t any sophistication to it, but he basically in that offense was able to take things that were difficult for the defense, but very simple for us. mean, our players knew if they’re bringing field pressure, this is our one call. I mean, I would get on Sammy sometimes because he can see the field pressure. He would hear

Coach Morris on the sideline, get ready to check. And he wouldn’t, look at the signal. He’d go like, cause he knew what the check was, but that really spoke to the players knew and they could all in that offense. And so I think it was the right offense at the right time with the skill guys that we had coming in there. Coach Morris brought a great energy. And again, I mean, I learned a lot. force would be another guy that I would have on my mentor list. Cause I learned a lot from him.

him and I became very close. They were still very close friends and they talk at least once a week, even today. But yeah, that was a pretty awesome time to see, you know, and there was also a big moment in there because again, I’ve been a part of Clemson since I was a freshman in 1999. So now this is Chad Morris’s first year. A lot of people don’t know this story either. And, you know, we’re eight, no, right out the gate. And Urban Meyer

Who had stepped away at Florida and was doing some TV analysts for ESPN had done a couple of our games and seen our offense. And so, after eight games or eight, no, urban Meyer calls Chad one night. It tells him that he’s getting ready to take the high-stake job at end of the season. He will sit him to go with Chad to be the OC and he’s got to pay him a million dollars. And I think Chad was making 400,000 here at the time, which was the most that Clemson had ever paid a coordinator.

And so Chad came to me and told me that, you know, that night. I said, well, man, congratulations, you know, by the way, asking me to say, need a white outfit. And I said, cause I can go ahead and tell you right now, I’ve been around the clips long enough. Like we’re not going to be able to compete with that. the weekly, I mean, it was, it was a lot for them to give you 400,000. There’s no wedding. They’re going to do that. And I think it speaks to the, the changing of maybe attitudes and all that at the time. And really a leadership, coach Sweeney and

Terry Dillon got together and two days, two or three days later, Chad signed a five-year contract for $6 million or something. And I remember telling my dad, whenever I saw that, said, that right there is a change that would not have happened in the old Clemson. We just said, man, we appreciate you being here, but we keep out here and a 50-20 brought, hey, best is the standard. Let’s do whatever the best for Clemson is. so that does, again, those are just little kind of check in.

places in my mind of seeing things change around the Europe. And a lot of that had to do with, you know, Coach Sweeney, Terry Don, and then Dan Radicovich, and then obviously President Clements. I mean, it’s been talked about before, but it cannot be emphasized enough the impact that President Clements had on the success of Clemson football. I mean, you get Coach Sweeney and President Clements together. It’s like you got two head coaches.

And this is another story a lot of people don’t know. So I’m the recruiting coordinator at the time that President Clements gets hired. I remember we were all excited about who our new president was going to be. We actually stopped our offensive coach of staff meeting to pull up the TV and watch the announcement. And we kind of looked at his background at West Virginia and saw a lot of his love for football. And I think it was two days later, I get a knock on my office door there in the football office, and it was President Clements.

And he’s like, are you Jeff Scott? And I was like, yes, sir. And he introduced himself and told me he’s the president. I was like, yeah, great to meet you. He’s like, you’re the recruit coordinator, aren’t you? I was like, yes, sir. He’s like, I’d like to help you guys in recruiting. So let me know how I can help. And I’m like, man, you’re talking about a college president within the first week comes to search out who the recruiting coordinator is and tells you he wants to help. And so we got him on the phone right away with the recruits. And President Clinton still has this list on his phone.

And it was like the first 25 recruits over the next three or four years that he was heavily involved with. I think we went 22 of 25s. It was incredible. And I remember that first spring, he called me during spring recruiting and said, hey, Wednesday nights from seven to eight PM, I want to give you an hour. So if you’ll get it lined up with what recruits parents or recruits you’ll be able to phone with, I’ll be happy to do that.

So here I am talking to T. Higgins and his mom. And I’m like, hey, our school president wants to talk to you tonight at seven o’clock. And not only him talking to him, but he could communicate in a way that these student athletes could see that the same thing Coach Sweeney brought to the football side and to athletics, the same thing that Terry Don and that time David Radicovich was going to bring athletics. He was going to do the same thing on the school side. And so it was just kind of that synergy there.

in the leadership, things changed in a very positive way so quickly. Whereas maybe many years ago, it was kind of the old fashioned way, if you will, which how most places, I mean, it would take us three years to get a pool table out into the locker room. Whereas when you get that group put together, I we were updating our dorms and all these different things, new facilities, and we were really able to kind of move up the ladder pretty quickly.

when we had everybody on board along with obviously a very, very supportive board of trustees. Yeah. So then I think Dabo and others quickly realized that was the facilities were really important. And so we got the best facilities and some of the probably the best in the country. Now things have sort of evolved. Now you got the NIL, got the transfer portal. So tell me what kind of what you think about.

like all that and how it’s changed and how different it is compared to. And I do, I do want to circle. I do want to circle back some, if we may not have time, but I, I do want to hear your thoughts on how you took Chad Morris’s offense. and Tony took Chad Morris’s offense. Like it was obvious y’all put your own little spin on it, I’ll get to that in a minute. But I am curious about the, you say it. Obviously there’s a lot of things. mean the whole.

country and whole world has changed over the last four years, just since COVID and all the different things that that brought and obviously the change in college sports. mean, I think number one, just kind of 10,000 foot view, I do believe with the amount of money that is generated in college athletics today is drastically different than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

And so I am for the student athletes getting a piece of the pie. you know, how that’s distributed and what that looks like. don’t know, but I’m, I’m not one of these that say they shouldn’t get anything. I coach story is not that way either. think the frustrating part for us, if you will, is, you know, we, we, we’re able to recruit to Clemson. We recruited players to Clemson that wanted to come here because they wanted to be number one, get a great education or the great college.

They wanted to be developed as a man, as a student, as an athlete. And I know it is important to us that people chose Clemson for the right reasons. And there were some battles that I can’t talk about, 10 years from now we can do this again. But there were some battles whenever we were, you know, in that kind of 2014 to 2018, where we were recruiting against other schools and another conference that were paying players. you know, and we…

had to convince some of these players not to take money. so Coach Sweeney wanted to prove that you could win at the highest level doing it the right way, not buying players illegally, which there are several programs doing that that we were recruiting against, not by using your players and just throwing them out on the street and not making sure they get their degree and all those things. So we took a lot of pride doing that. And then the rules have kind of switched where now you go buy players.

So I think that’s kind of the back history of why it’s disappointing. I can’t obviously can’t speak for coach Swinney, but I know he does want a player to choose Clemson because of money is the number one sector. He wants him to choose because he wants to be challenged and developed and be a part of an incredible program, incredible university. So, you know, I’m disappointed in overall that, you know, maybe the leadership, the NCA, the conference leadership that he…

A.D.’s presidents, all this. I think we kind of had our, you know, our head in the sand a little bit, you know, just knowing that this day was coming. But if we would have been a little more proactive, because we had an idea that is shared with our staff probably four years before and I helped say we should take some money, you know, maybe $25,000 a year and put in you know, an IRA for every division one.

as elite and then upon graduate and they get to say $25,000 a year and upon graduation, again, kind of keep graduation as a key part, upon graduation, they would get access to that money. Well, a couple of things that would be awesome about, and that’s not gonna happen now, and unfortunately that won’t happen now because we were already too far past that, but a couple of things. Number one, it keeps them to saloon graduation. And then number two, the student athletes would not really have access to that money.

until they graduated and finished their career. A key part on that is by then the players know, 99 % of them know I didn’t make it to the NSL. So that $200,000 or $300,000, they’re probably gonna be a little bit more careful and wise how they spend that. know, that they got a real job making $50,000 a year, as opposed to when you give it to them when they’re 18, 19. You know, they all believe, which we love them having believes, but every one of them believe they’re going to the NSL, they’re gonna make $20 million.

So why do they need to save their $300,000? So the sad piece is they spend all of that in college. They don’t make the NSL and now they’re having to regret it, right? So I don’t have the answer to how to fix to where it is. I think the reality is we’ve got to kind of see where it’s going. And I’m just hoping that there will be some stabling of the foundation of college athletics, which right now…

It’s spiraling and it’s not, it’s a free for all. It’s a free for all. Yeah. And it’s just whoever has the most money. All right. Everybody celebrate Miami and obviously crystal ball has done a great job. They spent over $25 million. You know, I heard some announcers on their national radio. So they couldn’t believe in this era where everybody’s struggling to fight quarterbacks that the Texas has two of the best in the country. Well, they’re, they’re spent five, six, $7 million on those two. So let’s don’t act like the coaches are, you know,

You guys are figuring out something nobody else can figure out. So, so that part is a little frustrating, but I think we’re just kind of in a really weird stage. I Clemson’s in a great spot, with a leader like Graham Neff. I think it’s going to take, someone with his type background, business background, really afford that he curve in this era of change. so I feel really good about that. And then what I know about Kurt Sweeney is, he’s going to do whatever he feels like is.

the best for the young men, number one, and the best for us to be on the house of success. And so he’s definitely doing things maybe behind the scenes that are gonna put us in a really good spot. And I think he’s gonna find his way to win in this new era. And we gotta kind of give him and the program administration everybody time to kind of work through that because obviously all the rules and stuff are still fluid. And start next year.

schools will be able to start paying their players up to $22 million. And so, mean, there’s a lot of things that are still, you know, kind of up to grabs that are still being decided. But I’m confident that here in a couple of years, things will level off a little bit. And hopefully we’ll be able to get that to a little bit of some type of normalcy. Yeah. Yeah. He, you know, I think most people think.

He’s got it figured out. It’s just there’s going to be a grace period. And I do want to say this too, the combination, the NIL really has nothing to do in the transfer portal as far as the obsession. Both of them kind of coming out at the same time. And obviously the transfer, you couldn’t have a transfer for a while, not having to sit out a year is new. And those two happening at the same time kind of created this

Bigger bomb that went off. now not only can you buy players that you could buy current players that are in current teams and all these types of things. And so I think a lot of times people get confused. I just say, you know, using the transfer portal and, you know, the, the hard part about the portal is, know, cause I know Clemson went after a couple of players in the portal last year, but you know, players in the portal today want two things that, that, you know, I’m not sure could Sweeney.

is okay. Given out. Then number one, if a player in the portal wants to be guaranteed a starting job, man, they’re literally have four teams telling them you’re going to come here and start for us. sweetie has never promised any player high school or college player a starting job. And I don’t think he ever will. So that’s one challenge with us getting players out of the portal is they’re going to require him to promise them a start job and Coop sweetie is not going to do it. And then the number two thing is they’re going to require a lot of money.

They want the money to be the reason that they’re coming. And obviously Coach Sweeney doesn’t want that to be the number one reason. So I think that is probably a bigger challenge with Clemson and the portal that it is Coach Sweeney not wanting to go into the portal. I think they went after a couple of off-ix alignment last year, but again, he’s not going to, which I understand it goes to core principles of his core beliefs. So hopefully that’ll kind of change a little bit in the way things happen in the portal and all those.

in the future, but that’s one, you know, big challenge, challenge there for sure. Yeah. that the way I see it is like Dabos probably ended up being the most consistent team. Yeah. No, you look at Florida state, they’re a train wreck. Yeah. And it’s, know, we live in that, instant gratification world, instant gratification. you know, it’s like everybody wants to be successful now. Well, okay. Florida state had an awesome year last year. They lost their quarterback. Got unlucky there in the season.

This year they’ve got, you know, the three, they’re O three. And it’s like, okay, that was the trade off. So you had one good year last year. We went what? 10 and three. That’s that. That’s if that’s a bad season, I’ll tell you that every, I take that every year, you know? Yeah. No, I think one of the things that you bring that up is a great point. The level of consistency. And I know last year regular season, maybe we lost it, but we had 10 years, 10 wins or more.

for multiple years. I think we were only second in Alabama in the history of college football. It was absolutely incredible. even with all the stuff going on, and maybe not even use the word even, more important than ever, it’s gonna take a great culture, a great locker room, because you’re exactly right. Obviously you look at Texas A spending close to $20 million and it’s gonna take culture.

You’re about ag on my face. Like spent $20 million and you still don’t have your It’s kind of like what David said on ESPN a couple of weeks ago. You also, it’s not just spending money, you got to spend it on the right ones. so it’s hard being the right ones. NFL are about 50 % success rate on first-round draft picks. And they got a lot more money, a lot more time evaluating a 20 to 23 year old than we are evaluating high school guys. So yeah, I think, you know…

Chris Whitty has been very successful. all, you know, it’s all run here and, it’s, it’s, it’s fun watching him do it the Clemson way. And, I got no doubt, he’s going to have continued success, working through and navigating some, unchartered, waters. real quick, know you spent, or two weeks ago, you sat in the stands for the first time ever.

That’s right. That was my first time ever. Like ever, ever. Ever sitting at what I did. So that was my first time at a Clemson home game. A few years ago, I took my whenever I was at South Florida, I took the family over to Orlando for the Cheez-Its bowl. OK, and I couldn’t be down the field, but I wanted to sit with Savannah and my wife. So that was my first college game as an adult ever in the stands. But they don’t want to death valley.

That was definitely an incredible experience. I’m glad the game went as well as it did after the first two plays. On that we threw a bubble screen and then we had a tackle for a loss and it’s like third to 11. I can already see people starting looking at me. They’re all on a state thing. Then the very next play we had the touchdown, a long touchdown and the lid came off.

And so it was a great first game to be watching from the stands. And, you know, I actually enjoy, watching games at home on TV, you know, when you’ve had to be there through your whole life, it’s nice to be able to sit back and watch on TV and kind of see replays, you know, commentary commentary, but my, children, obviously Savannah nine hundred four, they want to get a game. I’ll be taking them to games. But yeah, I thought it’d be pretty funny.

If I put out a tweet after that game, you know, okay, here are the top 10 things that I’ve learned sitting in the stands, you know, things that the fans are saying. you know, always wondered what they say up there. Even my wife would tell me a few times through the years what’s exactly the dead set up there. But the other takeaway is you can see it’s great seats. have my wife, Sarah, her parents have had 50 yard line seats in there finally for about 40 years. And it was.

Incredible. You know, I’ve typically been on the sideline. Tony was in the box when we were doing it together and it’s a different perspective. But sitting up there 50 yard line, I was like, this is unbelievable being able to see it from this perspective. And it was awesome. It was definitely a special kind of moment. And I’m sure I’ll be back if you were games this fall. Are you going to Mar? I’m not. actually going, you know, a new new hobby that I’ve taken up now that I’m not coaching is deer hunting.

yeah, so I’m actually going down to some of my in-laws property. They have some property down in Batesburg and I’m going to go home with my brother-in-law, Ryan McDaniel, this weekend. And, I’ve given my tickets to a good friend and he’ll be cheering on the Tigers. And obviously I’ll be watching the game, but we’re not going this week. Well, I hope you get that one. Yeah, we’ll see it there. Absolutely. Okay. So real quick, tell everybody what you’re doing now. Yeah. man.

Do a lot of things. the short story is whenever I got back in January of 23 and knew that, wanted to maybe step away from coaching for a little while and, kind of see what that looks like. I think a lot of coaches that maybe kind of got to the point where I was there being a head coach and having a contract where they can have some flexibility. A lot of times the coaches are older and the kids are already out of the house. It’s just them and their wives. So they just keep coaching.

For me, I kind of got to that point with a nine-year-old, a four-year-old. It’s so like me, now I could potentially be able to coach their lowly teams and be a dad, right? And, but also knew I wanted, you know, I want to continue. I’ve always liked real estate as something even when I was coaching. I’ve always enjoyed real estate and looking on different properties. And my wife and I kind of got into a little routine where we…

that takes some flips, you know, on some condos that we owned in Destin. There are some of the years that I was coaching at Clinton. Somebody had a contractor there that we would go buy it in the spring. You pick everything out the summer. And then the contractor would do the flip in the fall. We’ll be right there. And then we go sell it in the spring and do that a couple of times. But I love just this whole area, the golden quarter and the foothills. They’re here. The Blue Ridge Mountains, Love Lake, Keeney Way.

So I knew I wanted to do something up there. I felt I was probably gonna invest in some spec building, maybe in the reserve or the cliffs. And I ended up through some different connections. I met a custom builder that had been building up there on the lake and in the cliffs for a while, started a custom home building company called Hagen Valley. And we should be doing five to six homes in the cliffs and reserve this year.

And so that’s gone really well. I’m really excited about that. I’ve got a great team that I’m working with there. And then as you know, you and I have been talking about doing some collaboration on some stuff in the construction field as well. And probably that’s probably what I’ve been most excited about, what I’ve enjoyed the most. My business endeavors is being able to do business with people that I respect like yourself in this Clemson community.

and other clubs and connections that I have throughout Greenville. And when you’re a coach, obviously we’d be able to develop a little bit of a You we don’t have a lot of time. You just see each other around and say hello, but you really can’t do business with them because you’re coaching. So now not many coaches get the opportunity to come back where they coached in the past and hopefully still have a good reputation. We’d also be young enough to be able to do business with those connections. So that’s been really fun for me.

being able to do that. you know, I’m excited about it I’m looking forward to it. My wife’s reminded me that, you know, one of the reasons I studied, I didn’t go back into coaching so I could be home more. So I got to, you know, when you’re ramping up a business, there’s a lot of time that goes into that. But there’s also lot of flexibility in that as well. But honestly, I’m loving what I’m doing right now. It’s a whole new world. They don’t have to learn a lot of things kind of.

drinking through a fire hydrant type deal. But what I found, one of the best ways is to be able to partner with guys like yourselves that have been doing this for a while to have great reputations. With a lot of the same things that I take from Coach Swaney, principles of why we have been successful at Clemson, why he’s been successful is, number one, it’s about who you surround yourself with. And I think business is no different than football and all those things. There’s people who do things the right way, and then there’s people that have reputations for doing things the wrong way.

And so number one, I’m going to always surround myself with good people. And then the other thing that I’ve learned is, you know, in business, whenever you communicate with people, you answer your emails, you talk to people on the phone, you do what you say you’re going to do. You have integrity, all these things. But I bet you like the top 10 % in the business world. So just hopefully beat myself in the same disciplines that I had there at Clemson in football that a lot of.

us to be successful. I’ve seen that already, you know, elevate myself and our business among the crowd a little bit. And, and obviously having the tie back to Clemson and to Coach Sweeney has been very valuable. But yeah, I’m really excited about what we’re doing here and about some fun projects. I’m working with Jimmy, it’s a great project, long view community there, right outside of Easley, 20 minutes from Clemson, 20 minutes from Greenville.

He’s been an awesome guy and a new mentor for me. I just like to go right around living in wall property and really just kind of learn a lot of things from him there. And so it’s been a whole new world, but also to be able to do it at the place that I love, which is Clemson. You know, we’re in Claredon Hall where Coach Shawnee lives. in our fourth house. I there’s only 21 homes in Claredon Hall. You know, we’re in our fourth house. They’re in Claredon and my wife’s hoping this will be the one that we’ll be in for a long time. So that part’s been good. then

If we close, as we close here, I’m actually going to throw out a quick little story that you don’t even know about. Cause you know, before I agreed to come on, I wanted to kind of watch a few of these podcasts videos. So I watched one you did with Chad Carson. Yeah. And a child, I know if you knew this or not, but Chad and I were actually roommates the first summer of my freshman year. And we were in the shoeboxes and, and so it was just that one summer. So Chad was awesome. Maybe he’s a couple of years older.

He really just kind of a mentor for me. And so he was grateful for that stuff. He introduced me to everybody, showed me how to do everything. And obviously a great role model, very disciplined, worker. And so now we fast forward. So now it’s my first fall keen upright. We’ll study two months later. And first I’m a freshman walk-on. So it’s time for the tryouts for the kickoff team. Well, I wasn’t going to get the trial because I’m a walk-on freshman.

I’m going to be basically the tackling dummy for the on kickoff return. I’m going to be on the scout team. And what was going to happen was you were going to have the guys trying out for the team. We’re going to run down full speed. I was trying to go block them. They’re supposed to kind of run through you and then go make the tackle. Well, the first guy I had in my line was actually Keith Adams. So I’m like, no way. Gosh, here we go.

I mean, I’m like 175, 180 pounds. So Keith comes full speed, he hits me and I kind of get, I don’t get knocked down. I kind of get knocked to the side a little bit. And then there was another guy and it was Chad Carson. I’m like, great, finally I got my buddy Chad. And he’s going to take care of me. this is where I also learned a valuable lesson. There is no going half speed on the field.

Chad ran through me so hard. first thing that hit was the back of my head. And I remember like, man, you were my roommate, my buddy. Chad kind of told me, know, he kind of walked by me afterwards and was like, how do you like that, Rumi? You know, something like that. I always have that memory right there. But it was also a learning part to the, hey, football is a full speed violet game. I give Chad our time. But yeah, Chad’s a guy I really…

need to go spend some more time with this. He’s done an incredible job here in the Clemson area. Incredible guy. Super guy. Awesome. Super smart guy. But I wanted you, I knew Chad was here with you. I would make sure you knew that story. I did. did not know. That’s a great story. can ask Chad about that. He’ll probably get a kick out of it here about that. Well, know, one of the things that I admire about Chad is he is so humble. Yeah. I mean, you can hardly tell that he ever…

Yeah. Play the sport. I mean, he’s, he’s trimmed up. mean, he doesn’t look like the live actor that he was in college, but I mean, he was a hard hit and he’s very humble and he’s a super smart guy. Yeah. I’ve gotten to be really good friends and close to Chad over the years. And, he’s been, you even though he’s younger than me, he’s, you I’ve learned as much from him as anybody over the years, but he’s definitely a good, good person to talk to.

Real estate wise, he’s got that, that podcast, coach car. think it’s going really well with that. He wrote a book and yeah, it’s done well with that. so, speaking to humble humbleness, I, you know, we’ll end on this. I could talk to you for hours. So maybe we do it again at the time, but you know, I’ve been really impressed with, with you and your humble nature as well. you know, I know you could have gone to a lot of places. think.

I think there’s probably a long list of coaches out there that would have hired you after you left, South Florida. you know, that, you know, the, the Davis podcasts experience matters. And, it really does matter. You’ve had tremendous amount of experience in your, your football career. And I know you could be, you could be coaching at a lot of places and you’re choosing to, to raise your family here. It says a lot about you. says a lot about, you’re strongly convicted and.

and your family guide and how much you love Clemson, love this institution. And I’m sure in the back of your mind, just like any athlete, you probably think about it from time to time. Nobody would blame me if you ever got back into it, but I think it’s cool that you’re trying a new career from the ground up and the amount since we first started talking to them.

to now, like all the stuff that you’ve learned. mean, I can tell why you’ve been successful in your life because you’re, you’re a humble guy, you’re smart guy. And, and when you want something, you go get it. And, and so I think I can’t remember. I was talking to said, they said, they said that about you too. So that, you know, Jeff just, Jeff’s a guy that if he wants something, he goes and gets it and he works hard. And, you know, that’s something that’s missed, you know, a lot of these days, people just want to snap their fingers and get, you know, and get instant gratification and you’ve earned everything that you’ve gotten. there’s no doubt that you’re going to be successful with Haven Valley and hopefully the projects that you and I are working on together as well, that collaboration will bring success to both of us. And I really appreciate you coming on the podcast with me and hopefully we can do it again. I would love to. All right. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you.