Tony Elliott has coached at Clemson since 2011. Vols Wire was informed on Friday he is a candidate to become Tennessee’s next head coach.
He started as a running backs coach for the Tigers, a unit he oversaw through the 2014 campaign.
Elliott was promoted to co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach from 2015-19.
Jeff Scott coached alongside Elliott as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach between 2015-19.
Scott left Clemson for his first head coaching position at South Florida following the 2019 campaign. Scott’s departure allowed for Elliott to become the Tigers’ sole offensive coordinator in 2020.
Newly-hired Louisiana-Monroe head coach Terry Bowden served as an analyst at Clemson during the 2019-20 seasons.
Bowden previously served as a head coach at Akron, North Alabama, Auburn, Samford and Salem, compiling a 175–114–2 record. He guided Auburn to an undefeated 1993 season.
Bowden went to Clemson to study the Tigers’ program that has been a fixture in the College Football Playoff and has won two national championships under head coach Dabo Swinney.
“I knew I wanted to be an analyst and to pick a school that was doing well with their head coach,” Bowden said on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days.” “When you have a place like Clemson, where at this point, whether it be Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Clemson, whatever it takes to win they have the means to get it.
“Whatever it takes to bring in the best coaches, best facilities, the best support staff, they work at that level.”
“What I was able to do was to watch and see how has organized his weight training program, the way he has organized his football daily schedule, his team meetings. Every aspect of the program, I began studying, and not only that, like so many of these two or three major programs, they have the means to bring in every bright, young graduate assistant, analyst, they have a program full of young guys that five years from now won’t be able to afford them. I was able to find and identify the young guys that were hungry like me, and were grinders like me, and they are being trained only one thing — how to win. They only know one thing, winning program, winning program. I wanted to surround myself with some guys that have been a part of a winning program. I went there with an intent of finding guys to take with me to go to a turnaround type situation and ULM came open.” –Terry Bowden
Bowden further detailed his time studying the likes Elliott.
The new ULM head coach mentioned Swinney’s success at Clemson stems from letting his assistants have he ability to coach without meddling.
“I think you have to do things in a manner that is successful nowadays,” Bowden said. “You have to do things, you can’t do it like you used to. I was a play-caller. (Steve) Spurrier was a play-caller, Bobby Bowden was a play-caller, now you don’t have many that do it. (Mike) Leach still does it a little bit. With so many things that a head coach has to do today, you can’t do that as well. You can’t balance all of the responsibilities. Sometimes you got to delicate it.
“Right now, I came here thinking I would have to do the offense. I prepared myself at Clemson to come back and be the offensive play-caller later and run what Clemson’s offense is because that is what I studied for two years. Thank goodness I got Rich (Rodriguez) wanting to coach his son, I just need to get out of his way.”
The entire show with Bowden can be listened to here or below.
Scott, USF’s head coach, previously joined the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days” and can also be listened to below discussing his time coaching alongside Swinney and Elliott.
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