Clemson Tigers Hiring Former ECU, James Madison Head Coach in Assistant Role

The Clemson Tigers continue to add talented coaches to their staff and they made another major hire on Monday afternoon.

As first reported by ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel, the Tigers are hiring former East Carolina Pirates and James Madison Dukes head coach Mike Houston to a role on the defensive staff under new defensive coordinator Tom Allen.

Houston, who also served as head coach at Lenoir–Rhyne and The Citadel before taking the James Madison job, was fired by East Carolina in October after the team got off to a 3-4 start coming off a difficult 2-10 season in 2023.

In 2016 in his first year with the Dukes, he led James Madison to an FCS national title before a return trip to the championship game the following year and a third consecutive playoff appearance after that. For his career, he boasts an impressive head coaching record of 106-62, but finished his time with the Pirates with a 27-38 mark.

Exactly what role Houston is going to serve in remains to be seen, but adding another head coach to the staff has worked out well for others in the past.

Clemson’s hire of Allen for the defensive coordinator position applied the same logic after he had a long tenure with the Indiana Hoosiers before arriving to Penn State and guiding the Nittany Lions defense to becoming one of the best in the country.

A former Division II tight end, Houston played at Mars Hill before he jumped immediately into coaching at the high school level as a defensive coordinator. He initially arrived to Lenoir–Rhyne as a defensive coorindator as well in 2007 but by the end of the 2010 season, he would climb his way up to head coach.

Seeing what plan Dabo Swinney has in place for him will be fascinating, but after a season for the Tigers where a program who prides itself on defense slipped from that, clearly Swinney has placed an emphasis on fixing that side of the ball.

With as much talent as anyone else in the country, there’s no reason why Clemson shouldn’t have one of the better defenses in the sport rather than the liability it was in 2024.

It also speaks to Swinney’s urgency to get things fixed this offseason and get the Tigers back to championship contention. Making outside hires, utilizing the portal, and embracing NIL at Clemson could be a dangerous thing for the rest of college football, and hiring Houston is just the next step of that plan.