Desmond Howard
Howard joined the College Gameday in 2005 following his Heisman Trophy-winning college career at Michigan and twelve years in the NFL.
He has been an overall good addition to the crew. Gameday has always tried to make their program fun, and Howard’s personality is positive and ebullient.
That doesn’t mean he won’t throw some barbs at certain teams depending on the situation, and Clemson has often found itself in his crosshairs.
His most infamous comment came in 2018 when he said the eventual national champions had a ‘finesse offense’. Most Clemson fans took that comment to be an insult, including assistant coach Jeff Scott.
Jeff Scott notes the huge rushing totals for Clemson over last three games. “Somebody needs to send that to Desmond Howard so he can get his facts straight.”
— Larry Williams (@LarryWilliamsTI) October 6, 2018
He followed this up with these comments:
"“During the show last week, we were talking about Clemson’s offense. I don’t know my exact quote, but I said if you look at the way they run the ball, they are more finesse than a power team. When you look at Alabama, especially before Tua, they are more of a power-running type of offense. They run a lot of power plays. Stanford with David Shaw, run a lot of power plays. That is their style running the ball is power. Clemson usually has some fast backs, scat backs, guys that are out in space doing their thing running jet sweeps. Don’t get me wrong, they will run between the tackles, but they are not lining up with a fullback a lot with double tight ends just running smash-mouth football. I said they are more of a finesse-running team. I guess one of their assistant coaches I guess took offense to that.”"
Howard isn’t any different than any other talking head – sometimes he is right and sometimes he is wrong. He can be irritating, but to his credit, he usually handles the fallout from such situations with humor, which I appreciate.
Desmond Howard said when he visited Clemson this summer Dabo told him they should give him a ring because he said Clemson had a finesse offense and they put it up all over the building 😂
— Matt Connolly (@MattConnollyOn3) December 7, 2019
He has also paid Clemson many compliments over the years, but I don’t think Tiger Nation will ever forget the finesse comments.