Clemson’s $1.425 million coordinator needed Google to stop Auburn

Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables is the highest-paid assistant at the program, but headed into kickoff weekend, he utilized some of the most inexpensive tools available to assist in defeating Auburn.

Following Saturday’s 19-13 victory over the other Tigers, Venables admitted that he needed both Google and YouTube to assist in the team’s defensive gameplan, which had to protect against the possibility of the Wing-T formation, which is also known as the single wing.

“Somebody just said they might be trying to do it. So we literally are watching Apopka High School, I’m watching Rick Darlington, the Glazier Clinic on YouTube the night before last,” Venables said via TigerNet.com. “Then I pulled up Google: ‘How To Stop the Wing-T.’ So I found a guy that defended it like I think I would want to do it. I just kind of took a few things from him. Told our guys, ‘look, I don’t know if they’re going to do it.’

“We didn’t want to panic our guys, because we could have worked on only that in our walk-through yesterday. We needed to work on other things and didn’t want to chase ghosts. We [laid out] a basic plan for it, and for the most part, it was OK. So, yeah.”

Ultimately, Clemson held the Auburn rushing attack to just 87 yards and an average of only 2.1 yards per carry, so give Google and YouTube the assist for that victory.

Of a more concerning nature for Clemson was their lackluster offensive performance, but it’s unlikely that YouTube or Google can help them correct that.