Tom Allen wasn’t looking to leave Penn State. Why Clemson’s DC job was a perfect fit

Earlier this month, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said he put together a list of about 12 names that he wanted to consider for his open defensive coordinator position.

In a moment that “humbled” Swinney and spoke to the pull of working for his program, he said 11 of those 12 coaches — all current DCs at other schools — ended up contacting Swinney, either directly or through their agent, to show interest.

The only coach who didn’t?

“This guy,” Swinney said Wednesday, grinning toward Tom Allen, the former Indiana head coach and Penn State defensive coordinator who was officially hired as the Tigers’ next defensive coordinator on Tuesday. Allen smiled.

“I didn’t reach out because I wasn’t looking,” he said.

That’s the long and short of how Clemson landed its next DC. Allen explained his decision to leave Penn State after just one season (and less than a week after PSU was eliminated from the College Football Playoff) as a family and culture fit.

A three-year deal with an average annual salary of $2 million didn’t hurt either.

Looming over all of it, though, was an expectation. A sense of urgency. A feeling — sometimes said, sometimes unsaid — that Clemson and Swinney needed to get their defense right because this is their best shot to make some noise in the national championship race in a while.

In 2024, despite fielding one of the worst rushing defenses in the country, Clemson still went 10-4, won the ACC championship and was within a touchdown of Texas — a team that ended up making the national semifinals — with 10 minutes left in a first-round CFP game on the road.

And nearly everybody who put Clemson in that position, starting with star senior quarterback Cade Klubnik, is back for 2025 with a keen understanding of what they could do this fall.

The thinking goes: Add a veteran defensive coordinator who just led a Big Ten team to top 10 finishes in total defense and scoring defense into the mix, let him work with a group of All-ACC and all-freshman honorees plus some transfers and see what happens. Clemson will be a preseason top 10 team this August for a reason.

“This group will hit the offseason knowing what it looks like and knowing that they’re good enough,” Swinney said. “But also knowing it’s a small margin for error. And we’ve all gotta get better. We’ve all gotta level up a bit. And that’s what we’ll do.”

How Clemson landed Tom Allen

Enter Allen, who was officially hired as Clemson’s defensive coordinator on Tuesday and immediately became the highest-paid coach among Swinney’s 10 assistants. He replaces Wes Goodwin, an internal hire who was fired after three seasons on Jan. 6.

Swinney, as per usual after he fires coaches, didn’t want to drag Goodwin’s name through the mud after his unit allowed the most yards per carry of any Clemson team since 1975. Goodwin, he said, had an “unbelievable work ethic” after Swinney promoted him from analyst to DC as Brent Venables’ replacement in fall 2021.

But his messaging was clear. Swinney explained at various points Wednesday how important it was for Clemson’s next DC to “control the line of scrimmage”; the importance of finding the “right guy” to lead a defensive coaching staff full of veterans and prominent names; and how happy he was to have someone he can confidently appoint “head coach of the defense.”

Things that Allen, a former Big Ten head coach of seven years with a fiery, commanding personality and over 30 years of on-field coaching experience, had. Things that Goodwin, an off-field analyst who had no formal playcalling experience when he was hired, did not.

“It just didn’t work,” Swinney said of Goodwin. “And that’s my fault.”

He added of Allen: “He’s a great leader of men. Has been for a long time. I love his background. I love his track record. Highly, highly recommended from some of the best people in this business, and not just coaches.”

How did it work out?

Swinney had an initial list of 12 coaches he wanted to contact and a bit of a head start — although Goodwin wasn’t fired until Jan. 6, the writing was more or less on the wall that he’d be losing his job after Texas gashed Clemson on the ground for 292 rushing yards rushing, as well as 38 points and nearly 500 total yards.

Clemson’s coach said he went from 12 names to five names to three names to two before ultimately, “after a lot of prayer,” settling on Allen as his pick.

As previously mentioned, Allen didn’t reach out to Swinney. He emphasized on Wednesday how appreciative he was of Penn State and coach James Franklin, who hired him as their defensive coordinator and paid him well ($1.5 million) in 2024.

Allen, he said, wasn’t looking for a job. He was laser-focused on Penn State’s CFP semifinal game against Notre Dame at the Orange Bowl. The Nittany Lions made the field as an at-large team (No. 6 seed) and won games against SMU and Boise State.

Swinney had to backchannel that interest himself, through the agent that he and Allen conveniently share. The message back from Penn State’s DC was clear: He wasn’t going to consider any other opportunities until the Nittany Lions’ season was over.

Penn State lost 27-24 to Notre Dame in the CFP semifinals last Thursday, and Swinney and Allen had their first phone call about the role last Friday night.

“Obviously, I still wish we were playing for one more game,” Allen said.

It’s not like he didn’t have interest in Clemson, though. Allen described himself as a man rooted in “faith and family” — music to Swinney’s ears — and a longtime admirer of Clemson’s coach, someone he’d actually swapped tips with in the past.

The importance of family

Allen, 54, also became emotional at times talking about the sacrifices his wife and his three children made as he followed his coaching dreams and how he saw a move back to Clemson, which puts him in close proximity to his daughters and grandchildren, as payback, in a way.

Allen got into college coaching later in life after 12 years in the high school ranks, which meant a lot of moving around for a 30-something coach who was raising a family at the same time.

His wife, Tracy, was a “superstar.” His kids — son Thomas and daughters Hannah and Brittney — switched middle schools and high schools more times than he could count. That especially took a toll on his daughters, he said, who struggled to make connections amid all the turnover.

Now he had a chance to get closer to them, and make a sacrifice of his own (with a three-year, $6 million contract providing a boost, of course). His daughter, Brittney, is less than an hour away in Greenville. His other daughter, Hannah, lives in North Carolina and has one child and another due in about a month. His son, Thomas, who has a wife and kid, will join him at Clemson as a defensive analyst.

“People that know me well: I’ll just say that they weren’t surprised my family was something that I put at a really high priority,” Allen said. “People will say, ‘Why would you leave after a year? We had such a great season.’”

“But for me, personally, this is about my family.”

Some housekeeping: Allen runs a base 4-2-5 defense with an extra defensive back on the field as opposed to a third linebacker. Clemson’s base defense is a 4-3, Swinney said, but it’s more or less evolved into the same scheme – a 4-2-5 – with the evolution of passing offenses.

Allen will “never say never,” he said, but he’s not interested in becoming a head coach again at this point after leading IU from 2017-23. For someone who’s moved around a good bit, Clemson is “hopefully” a long-term (or final) stop.

Swinney also indicated he wouldn’t be making any more staff changes past firing Goodwin and Allen wouldn’t be bringing any major defense assistants with him, just his son. So Allen will be working with the same group Goodwin supervised last year, which includes two coaches making over a million dollars (Nick Eason, Chris Rumph) and two others close (Mickey Conn, Mike Reed).

The personnel will include returning starters at defensive tackle (Peter Woods), defensive end (T.J. Parker), linebacker (Wade Woodaz and Sammy Brown) and cornerback (Avieon Terrell and Ashton Hampton), plus transfers in Purdue DE Will Heldt and Alabama LB Jeremiah Alexander.

The goal is simple: Maximize that group, improve the run defense and get Clemson in position to not just compete with the best teams in the sport but win those games.

High and immediate expectations, but ones that Allen embraces.

“We obviously were one game, one play away from getting to the national championship game,” he said. “And we expect to be in that situation here.”