Clemson Football: Brent Venables continues to show his creativity

Clemson football has the best defensive coordinator in the country and it’s continuing to show

The Clemson football program boasts the brightest defensive mind in the country in Brent Venables and it continues to show through his creativity.

There are many coaches throughout the history of time who are known for their ‘system.’ They recruit certain guys to play a system and there is no changing as far as the concepts or bases are concerned.

That’s simply not the case with Clemson football Defensive Coordinator Brent Venables.

Venables knows what type of bodies and athletes he wants to have in his system- especially at linebacker- but that doesn’t stop him from being creative and working to accentuate the strengths of his unit, rather than playing to a specific system year-in and year-out.

We’ve seen the Clemson defense run a basic 4-3 scheme for much of a season. And we’ve seen the Tigers go with a 3-3-5 look, as well.

Venables has always been multiple in his defensive attacks at Clemson football, but his creativity was on display this past weekend

What makes Venables such a good coach is that he’s willing to make changes to put his players in the best position to win.

One thing that has been a consistent complaint about this defense during the 2020 season is that the defensive line hasn’t been able to get enough pressure on the quarterback. Venables wants to have athletic bodies on the field to defend against the pass, but he knew that he needed to create a pass-rush against Kenny Pickett this past weekend.

So, what did he do? He lined up DE Myles Murphy at DT and put backup OLB Trenton Simpson as a standup defensive end. It worked to perfection.

Those little things that many Clemson football fans don’t even notice within the game are what makes Venables so good as a coach.

He’s been beaten at times, no doubt, but we’ll ride with Venables any day of the week when it comes to him figuring out a way to stop an offensive attack.