Clemson will be without an important coach on Friday.
Offensive coordinator and running back coach Tony Elliott will miss the Sugar Bowl due to COVID-19 protocols, the Tigers announced on Wednesday. He will not be traveling with the rest of the team to New Orleans late Wednesday afternoon.
Thus, Clemson will face the state of Ohio without the luxury of having its 2017 Broyles Award winning coordinator, who has called up plays throughout the season on the sideline. He is prevented from communicating with the rest of the coaches during the game, leaving coach Dabo Swinney to discover how the attack will work without Elliott to trust.
At the moment, it is unclear whether Elliott’s test was positive for COVID-19 or not, or whether it affected anyone in the program. Ohio State and Clemson will release their status reports on Friday sometime before the game.
Elliott, who spoke to the media as part of a regularly scheduled press conference on Wednesday, has been in Clemson since 2011. The 41-year-old assistant became a substitute team captain when he played for the Tigers from 2000 to 2003 and three years later he started a coaching career that never took him out of South Carolina. After stints in South Carolina and Furman, he joined Clemson’s coaching staff in 2011 as a running back trainer. He was then promoted by Swinney to co-offensive coordinator in 2015 before becoming the only offensive coordinator earlier this year, when the other co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott left for South Florida.
Since Elliott started his coordination duties half a decade ago, the Sugar Bowl will be the first time Swinney will not leave him at the stadium for a game.
Ohio State-Clemson is scheduled to start at 8 pm on ESPN with a national championship spot in play.