Duke defensive coordinator watching SMU and TCU film, has respect for Riley's offense

Garrett Riley is the reigning Broyles Award winner and he makes his Clemson debut at Duke on Labor Day.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Aug 28 12:38:03 GMT-04:00 2023

Clemson travels to Durham to take on Duke in the season opener a week from today, and the Blue Devil defense is paying close attention to TCU and SMU.

The Blue Devils and Tigers square off on Labor Day night in front of a national television audience (8 pm, ESPN). Both teams feature new coordinators – Mike Elko at Duke hired Tyler Santucci to be his new defensive coordinator last January, the same month that Clemson’s Dabo Swinney hired Garrett Riley to coach his offense.

Duke’s defense played well last season - the Blue Devils were ninth nationally in turnovers gained, logging 16 fumble recoveries and ten interceptions. Duke also had 36 sacks and 70 tackles for loss in 13 games.

Former defensive coordinator Robb Smith resigned so he could be closer to his Minnesota home, and Elko hired Santucci away from Texas A&M. That defense will look to build on allowing 22.1 points per game, which was fifth among ACC defenses last season, and that goal starts with the Tigers.

Santucci said the Blue Devils have watched a lot of game videos but just Clemson's to see the players and not the scheme. When it comes to scheme, he’s watched SMU of 2020 and 2021 and TCU last season, Riley’s last two stops.

“Purely Clemson is personnel-based,” Santucci said. “You’re watching those guys to see who they have coming back, see how they used them in the past. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? You watch the quarterback play. You watch the O-line play. If they ever had the combination of the five going into the season who were the starting five (on OL), what did they look like playing together?

“And then outside of that it’s been all TCU and SMU.”

TCU reached the national championship last season with an offense that was ninth in scoring offense at 38.8 points per game. Riley, the younger brother of USC head coach Lincoln Riley, has been an offensive coordinator for three seasons; in his two seasons at SMU, the Mustangs were a top-15 offense in both seasons.

Elko also reached into Texas for his guy, but he’s known Santucci for a while – back in 2014 Santucci was a graduate assistant at Wake Forest with Elko as defensive coordinator. Santucci then served as a defensive analyst on Elko's defense at Notre Dame in 2017 before the two joined forces in 2021 for a second stint together at Texas A&M, where Santucci coached linebackers with Elko as defensive coordinator until the latter was hired at Duke in December 2021.

In their final year together at Texas A&M, the two guided a defense that was among the nation's best, fielding the third-best scoring defense in the country at 15.92 points per game.

Despite being in the same state the last three years, Santucci never had any meetings with SMU or TCU.

“I don’t know Garrett Riley, I’m not really familiar with — we never had any crossover games,” Santucci said. “Know the name through his brother, Lincoln, and then Garrett. Obviously, they’ve both had elite offenses over the last couple of years. So, they’re doing something right. And it’s not hard to see, when you watch it, ‘Oh yeah, this is how it’s working.’

“No crossover, but you learn to respect it rather early once you watch it.”