Clemson Defensive Tackles Coach Dan Brooks is set to retire after Clemson’s national championship. Coach Brooks has been rumored to be thinking about retirement for several years and after getting a national championship in 2016 it appears that he has decided the time is right for him to leave. Dabo announced the move today during Clemson’s National Championship Parade.

Coach Brooks has been at Clemson since the beginning of the 2009 season, one of Dabo’s original hires as a head coach. Before that Coach Brooks spent 15 years at the University of Tennessee under Phil Fulmer. Before that he was an assistant coach under Mack Brown at UNC and worked at Florida in the 1980’s.

Dan Brooks will end his time at Clemson as one of the best assistants in the country. Under his watch Clemson saw a plethora of talent arrive at the DT position. Coach Brooks took that talent and turned the position into a powerhouse for the Clemson Tigers. Along with DE Marion Hobby the Clemson DL has been one of the best units in the entire country for the past few seasons.

On the recruiting side Dan Brooks’ retirement shouldn’t hurt Clemson, especially in this recruiting cycle and would actually remove a negative recruiting angle against Clemson, plenty of schools were using Coach Brooks’ age against him.

This is going to be a critical coach to replace and though it is early, an in-house name to keep an eye on is Mickey Conn who arrived this past spring as a defensive assistant after nearly 15 years as Grayson High School’s head coach.