In the early 2000s, Tony Elliott graduated from Clemson with a degree in engineering and got a job at Michelin North America in Pendleton, South Carolina. He envisioned the American dream – two-to-three kids, a white picket fence and retiring off his 401(k) in 30 years.

Two years into the industrial engineering job, Elliott found himself lacking motivation. He loved his bosses and adored his co-workers, but the corporate scene lacked a greater ideal. “I dreaded going back to work on Mondays. I didn’t feel like I was fulfilling any kind of purpose,” he told Yahoo Sports. “I was just going to a job.”

Elliott entered coaching at age 26 with a position coach job at South Carolina State in 2006. He eventually re-united with his college position coach, Dabo Swinney, at Clemson in 2011. From there, he’s helped fuel Clemson’s meteoric rise to the highest echelon of college football. Since Elliott became co-offensive coordinator and play caller for the 2015 season, the Tigers are 40-4 with a national title and three playoff appearances. He played a critical role in helping develop Deshaun Watson into a likely NFL franchise quarterback, a résumé line that will only look better as the years pass. “I think he will be a great college head coach,” Watson told Yahoo Sports. “He has the ability to relate to players, is a really good teacher and a leader. He’s learned from the best under coach Swinney.”

Along with finding a purpose, Elliott has found tremendous individual success. He won the Broyles Award last season as the nation’s top assistant coach, and with all that success came strong interest from UCF and Mississippi State for their head coach jobs. He declined the chance to meet with both schools because of the timing in both job situations.

To understand why Elliott has been judicious in seeking head coaching jobs is to understand where he comes from. Growing up in Southern California, Elliott had a father in jail and endured the horror of watching his mother die in a car accident. He survived stints of homelessness and ultimately moved east to live with family in Atlanta and South Carolina.

The itinerant childhood has shaped his coaching path, as he has a keen appreciation of the atmosphere that Swinney has fostered at Clemson. “Here, obviously, you have that sense of family, and as a kid when you don’t grow up with a family, that’s one of the biggest things that you desire to have,” he said. “I think when you get to a point where you feel like you’re fulfilling purpose, then it allows you to stay focused on what really matters. That’s why I’m not out looking and scanning at what’s going on [for jobs], just because I know that I was put here for a reason.”

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For the first time this offseason, Elliott, 38, said he’s allowed himself to ponder becoming a head coach. When he’s driving by himself, he said he’s started to think of his vision for a program. Elliott spent time developing relationships with agents this offseason but has yet to choose one. Elliott went to the convention for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to take part in the Champion Forum, a development program for high-performing minority coaches. He also spent time networking with search firms to better understand the interview process and what it entails to become a head coach.

Years removed from punching the clock as an engineer, Elliott retains many of the analytical skills he learned from his degree. When game-planning and making in-game adjustments, his engineering mind can calculate formations and tendencies to come up with the right play call. When looking at his next coaching move, Elliott’s perspective will mesh that analytical outlook with his family one, as his priority is ensuring he can run a program at a level that justifies a staff to entrust their families to join him. “One man can’t run a program,” Elliott said. “It’s the people within a program, so I want to make sure that I’m putting those people in a position to be successful.”

For Swinney, his former player and loyal assistant checks a lot of future head coaching boxes: “What are you looking for in a head coach?” he said of Elliott. “Character? Intelligence? And commitment? And loyalty? Knowledge? Someone who loves players and is going to do things the right way. He’s a pretty good candidate.”

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