Dabo Swinney is losing another member of his Clemson coaching staff.
Sources confirmed to ESPN on Monday that defensive line coach Todd Bates is following Brent Venables to Oklahoma to be the Sooners’ co-defensive coordinator. Venables, Clemson’s long-time defensive coordinator, left last month for the Oklahoma head-coaching job.
TigerIllustrated.com was the first to report Bates’ move to Oklahoma.
Swinney promoted senior defensive assistant Wes Goodwin to replace Venables as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator. Sources told ESPN that Venables was interested in taking Goodwin with him to Oklahoma.
Bates, who was also the Tigers’ recruiting coordinator, received a raise and promotion last month to assistant head coach. He had coached Clemson’s defensive line since 2017.
In addition to Venables and Bates, Swinney lost offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, who was named Virginia‘s head coach last month. Quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter replaced Elliott as Clemson’s offensive coordinator.
On the football administrative side, Thad Turnipseed also left Clemson to join Venables at OU. Turnipseed had been the Tigers’ director of player development and external affairs. Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich left to take the athletic director’s job at Miami. He was replaced in-house by Graham Neff, who was previously Clemson’s deputy athletic director.