First, it was a future Hall of Fame coach. Now it’s someone who’s already been bestowed with football’s highest honor.

Wesley Goodwin’s co-workers aren’t shy about drawing parallels to some of the game’s greats in expressing their confidence in the Clemson assistant despite Goodwin spending most of his career working behind the scenes to this point.

That will change this fall when Goodwin begins his first full season as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator, a role to which he was promoted in December after spending years as former coordinator Brent Venables’ right-hand man in an off-field capacity. Goodwin has just one game worth of on-field coaching experience in his new gig – Clemson’s Cheez-It Bowl win over Iowa State – but the comparisons of Goodwin to some of the game’s best continued this week from those who work alongside him.

“He reminds me of Dick LeBeau,” defensive tackles coach Nick Eason said Tuesday.

Goodwin’s reaction?

“Holy smokes,” Goodwin said through a chuckle.

LeBeau, whom Eason played for as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers and coached with when the two were on the Tennessee Titans’ staff together, is widely considered one of the greatest defensive minds in the sport’s history. Best known for the invention of the zone blitz, LeBeau spent nearly six decades in the NFL as a player and coach and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame before he retired following the 2017 season.

That comparison comes after Swinney revealed Goodwin’s “Weslichick” nickname within the Tigers’ football facility shortly after Goodwin’s promotion, a nod to Bill Belichick. All the New England Patriots’ coach has done is win more Super Bowls (5) than any head coach in NFL history.

The comparisons to some of the legends of the game have less to do with what Goodwin has accomplished in the game and more with the way he approaches it mentally. Defensive ends coach Lemanski Hall, who has been on staff throughout Goodwin’s second stint with the program, which began in 2018, said Goodwin has the kind of instantaneous memory that’s rare among those in the profession.

“All I know is if Coach V would ask Wes about something (that) happened in 2014 or 2015 or even ‘13, Wes, I’m telling you, he could find the (video) clip right then and pull it up,” Hall said. “Or he could just state exactly what happened. I’m always, not surprised because I’ve been around Wes a little bit, but at that moment sometimes, it just shocks me. I can barely remember last week, and this guy goes back to remembering 2012 or ‘13.

“It blows my mind because I’m like, ‘How are you able to do that?’ When you find guys like that, and Wes is one, it’s unbelievable.”

Swinney believes Goodwin’s commitment to the job has something to do with it, too.

“He’s just got a high aptitude for the game and really a second-to-none work ethic,” Swinney said. “There’s been times over the years where you take something to Wes or you need something done, and you can’t even get down the ball and he’s already walking down there to giving it to you. He’s one of the most prepared people that I’ve ever worked with.”

Eason echoed Swinney’s sentiment, which is why he said Goodwin reminds him of his former defensive coordinator. Hired as Todd Bates’ replacement in January, Eason has only been working with Goodwin for seven months, but it’s been long enough for Eason to tell he’s involved with a football junkie.

“He studies the game. He loves the game,” Eason said. “In his free time at home, he’s probably drawing up plays. And I’m not just exaggerating. He knows it from the back end to the front end, and he’s always been like that since he stepped in this building just talking to Woody McCorvey and Coach Swinney.

“He’s a coach of the game. He knows it all, and he really takes pride in what he does.”

Goodwin only partly shot down Eason’s play-drawing assumption outside of the office. He said he feels like he does “a great job” of leaving work at the football facility, though he admitted there was some drawing on napkins while vacationing with his family in Hawaii and on the Alabama coast earlier this year.

Bottom line is, Goodwin has a mind that, more often than not, is pondering the various ways in which he can implement the various knowledge he’s soaked up along different stops on his career path.

Goodwin originally joined Swinney’s staff in 2009 as a graduate assistant. He left for the NFL in 2015 as the assistant to then-head coach Bruce Arians with the Arizona Cardinals, a good indication of how highly thought of Goodwin’s football acumen is. With Arians being the Steelers’ offensive coordinator at the same time LeBeau was the defensive coordinator (2007-14), it was in Arizona where Goodwin said he became more intricately familiar with LeBeau’s defensive scheme.

“At Arizona, we actually ran some of their concepts because BA and a bunch of those guys came from the Steelers,” Goodwin said. “We implemented a lot of that stuff when I was there, and obviously I’ve kept a lot of those concepts in my back pocket as well. So we’ll see how it influences this year as well.”

For now, Goodwin is taking his latest comparison in stride.

“Hopefully I can last in this profession about 70 years like (LeBeau), but I consider him one of the greatest defensive minds obviously,” Goodwin said. “The fire zones and all the great defenses he’s coached. Hopefully I live up to that one day.”

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