Penn State expert gives insight into new Clemson DC Tom Allen

It didn't take long for Dabo Swinney to find his new defensive coordinator. Just nine days after officially announcing that he had parted ways with former DC Wes Goodwin, the Clemson head football coach introduced Tom Allen as his new defensive coordinator on Wednesday.

"The best of the best really wanted to come and be here at Clemson," Swinney said. "And so that was a really cool thing for me to just go through. I got it down from ten to twelve to five and then really did a real deep dive there. I got it down to three and then I got it down to two. And in the end, I just felt like, a lot of prayer, the good lord just put this thing together, that's the best answer I can give you and I felt like he's a great coach..."

Unlike his predecessor, Wes Goodwin, Allen has a long coaching track record. He's been in the profession for 33 years and was even the head coach at Indiana from 2017-13.

It was his work at Penn State this season, his lone season as the PSU defensive coordinator, that most are focusing on, though. That is because the Nittany Lions featured one of the top defenses in the nation in 2024.

Allowing only 294.8 yards per game, Penn State finished No. 7 nationally in total defense. Additionally, the Nittany Lions were No. 8 in scoring defense by allowing only 16.5 points per game.

Allen's defense this past fall was disruptive. It finished second in the country in tackles for loss (119) and fifth in sacks (44). That type of aggressiveness should excite most Clemson fans given that the Tigers have been among the national leaders in those two statistical categories in the past few seasons.

Still, there are some who might not be sold on Allen. It is fair to point out that his success at Penn State might have been a product of leading a defense that had been built by his predecessor, Manny Diaz, who left last offseason to become the head coach at Duke.

So to find out just what to expect from Allen, we picked the brain of Josh Yourish, national staff writer for FanSided.com who covers Penn State at Victory Bell Rings. Here's what Yourish had to say about the new leader of the Clemson defense.

We began by asking Yourish what type of system Allen prefers to run. He said that Allen wants to be aggressive.

"Allen runs a 4-2-5 defense," he said, "that wants to live in that base formation with a hybrid safety in the nickel spot to help as a tackler in the run game and cause havoc around the line of scrimmage. His defenses are built to stop the run and against the pass, Allen isn’t afraid to blitz, so his unit can thrive when it’s getting home quickly and holding up in coverage.

"However, at times during his one season in Happy Valley, the better passing offenses that Penn State faced were able to exploit mismatches in man coverage (see Tez Johnson's 11 catches for 181 yards in the Big Ten title game or Notre Dame torching Kobe King in coverage in the Orange Bowl). 

"Some of those deficiencies had to do with Penn State’s talent limitations in the secondary - particularly in the slot after safety Kevin Winston Jr. went down in Week 2 - but others were opposing play-callers just winning the chess match against a defensive coordinator who will leave players on islands in coverage."

Next, we asked Yourish whether Allen's success at Penn State was more about his ability as a coach or the fact that he inherited elite talent when he took over the Nittany Lion defense.

"I’d have to lean talent over Allen in this debate," he said. "There was a ton of NFL talent on Penn State’s defense in 2024, most notably Abdul Carter, though Allen does deserve some credit for his hand in moving Carter from off-ball linebacker to defensive end last offseason. Penn State’s defense was elite under Manny Diaz in 2023 and took a small, though still meaningful step back in 2024, especially against the best offenses on the schedule. 

"What really leans the argument to the side of talent is that at nickel corner, the one spot where the talent dropped off after Winston’s injury moved Reed from nickel to deep safety and elevated slot cornerbacks Cam Miller and Zion Tracy on the depth chart, Allen never had an answer. Tez Johnson lit up his defense from the slot when Penn State lost to Oregon and [Notre Dame's] Jaden Greathouse had a career night in the Orange Bowl. 

"One of the defense’s crowning achievements was bottling up [Boise State running back] Ashton Jeanty in the Fiesta Bowl, and it played much of that game without Carter after he suffered a shoulder injury, but even that effort was led by future NFL players like Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zane Durant, and Kobe King."

When asked about the strengths of Allen's defense, Yourish pointed to stopping the run. That should be music to the ears of all Clemson fans after seeing the Tigers struggle in that regard this past season.

"For a defense that plays with just two linebackers and lives with a nickel on the field," he said, "Allen can flat-out stop the run, which is exactly what Clemson needs after getting shredded by Texas on the ground in the first round of the CFP. He primarily plays a gap down along the defensive line with a four-down front, but his defense fit the run incredibly well and rallied to tackle. 

"While he may not cover up for talent deficiencies particularly well, Allen deserves credit for getting the best out of his best players. Carter exploded as an edge rusher, but in big games, Allen would move him all over the defensive line and at times even back to linebacker as the ultimate chess piece. Allen would use Carter to spy mobile quarterbacks like Luke Altmyer and Riley Leonard on crucial third downs and that creativity led to multiple big-time stops. 

"TJ Parker is a much bigger defensive end than Carter, as is 6-foot-6 265-pound Purdue transfer Will Heldt, but expected Allen to find interesting ways to deploy his primary pass-rushers."

On the other hand, Yourish was not a fan of the way Penn State handled high-end passing attacks under Allen. That was particularly problematic in big games.

"I’ve harped on it too much already," Yourish said, "but one of the reasons that Oregon and Notre Dame exploited mismatches in the secondary is because play-callers like Will Stein and Mike Denbrock knew how to manufacture them. With Allen’s reliance on the 4-2-5 system, Oregon would split out a tight end in its 11-personnel, who would be matched by an outside corner, leaving a safety or a linebacker on a wide receiver. In my opinion, Allen needed to trust his elite defensive line to win and get more creative with additional defensive backs against spread offenses. Here’s a better breakdown of the Big Ten title game.

Finally, the way to tell what someone really thinks about a coach is to understand how that person feels when his or her favorite program is tasked with replacing said coach. Yourish gave his thoughts on seeing Penn State lose Allen to Clemson.

"Penn State is in a unique position," he said, "having shuffled through three defensive coordinators over the last five seasons. So, there’s certainly a lot of confidence that James Franklin can hire a quality replacement and keep things rolling on that side of the ball. With that said, I was calling for Penn State to move on from Allen before this news so I definitely wasn’t sad to see him leave. 

"Allen’s defenses fell off a cliff at Indiana, which is probably the biggest reason he was fired. Then, he took a top-five defense from 2023 and made it a top-10 defense in 2024, and dozens of defensive coordinators could’ve done exactly that with the talent that was in Happy Valley."

Though Yourish does not seem too sad about Allen's departure, Clemson fans are optimistic that he can improve the Tiger defense in 2025. The bar at Penn State is extremely high on the defensive side of the ball as that's the aspect of the game that drives everything the Nittany Lions do.

Unlike in Happy Valley, at Clemson Allen's defense will be complemented by what should be one of the top offenses in the nation in 2025. Thus, he won't have to field a top-five unit in the country for the Tigers to win big. All Allen will be asked to do is show improvement over what Goodwin's defenses put forth and that shouldn't be asking too much.