Tough love? No problem. New Clemson assistant coach thrives with fiery style

Chris Rumph didn’t conduct his first formal media interview as Clemson football’s newly hired defensive ends coach until Wednesday.

But he’s already been a quote machine this month, thanks to the team opening up a few periods of practice to reporters ahead of the Gator Bowl against Kentucky.

That access has allowed for an up close and personal look at Rumph’s coaching style, which he described as “coaching them hard and loving them even harder.”

Emphasis on hard.

Here’s a sampling of Rumph’s comments to his defensive ends group during his first two practices with them on campus earlier this month.

“You ain’t gonna make it with me like that.”

“That softness ain’t gonna work.”

“You’re either the hammer or the nail. Be the hammer.”

It was a new voice and a welcome voice for everyone in and around the Clemson program — enough that DeShawn Williams, a former Tigers defensive lineman who played for Rumph in his first stint at the school, declared on social media that Rumph was already “bringing back that old Clemson!” after a single practice.

Thrown into action right away after being hired Dec. 4, Rumph said it’s what he’s always done, whether coaching at Clemson, the SEC or in the NFL.

“I’m gonna coach them hard every day in anything, whether it’s football or life,” Rumph said Wednesday after a practice at Fernandina Beach High School. “Everything’s gonna be coached hard, but they’re gonna know where it’s coming from.”

Even if he’s still getting to know his guys by name.

Right now, he said, he knows “most of them.”

“Nicknames,” he said, laughing.

Chris Rumph’s return

It’s been that sort of month for Rumph, 51, who’s returning to college football after four years in the NFL and 17 before that at college level from 2003-19. That included a stint as Clemson’s defensive line coach from 2006-10.

He left the Tigers two years into Dabo Swinney’s now-lengthy head coaching tenure and racked up quite the résumé: two national championships as Nick Saban’s defensive line coach at Alabama, stints at Texas and Florida and Tennessee, position coaching jobs for the NFL’s Houston Texans, Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.

But Rumph — a St. Matthews, South Carolina native who played linebacker at USC in the 1990s — never truly left. Swinney revealed on a podcast interview earlier this week that Rumph would still tag along on the Clemson staff’s annual ski trips to Colorado after he left. He nearly returned to the Tigers in 2017 when Swinney had an opening. This, he said, was a can’t-miss opportunity.

“This was one of the places that my wife and I were talking about if we made that move back, where we would go … once this opportunity came up, it was a no-brainer,” he said. “(Swinney) didn’t have to sell. I knew. I’ve been here before. I knew what was here.”

Which made acclimating to the program on short notice “like riding a bike,” Rumph said. College football has changed a lot since he was last in the sport in 2019 as a position coach at Tennessee. Name, image and likeness. The transfer portal. Conference realignment.

But Rumph — hired to replace Lemanski Hall after the longtime defensive ends coach and Clemson mutually parted ways after six seasons in late November — is still Rumph.

He showed up on campus with a track record, including sending six defensive linemen to the NFL during his time at Alabama and five during his time at Florida. And a reminder that he hadn’t slowed down a bit from his first go-round with Clemson over a decade ago.

A Dec. 12 video posted by a local sports anchor featured Rumph chewing out true freshman defensive end AJ Hoffler and the rest of his position group — which also includes talented freshman All-American TJ Parker — after some sloppy reps in practice and promptly went viral.

“Stop waiting on it!” a fiery Rumph told Hoffler. “We’re gonna have a problem. I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you right now. Because I don’t like it soft. We’re gonna have a serious problem. So all y’all know that. We’re gonna have some issues.”

Hoffler’s take?

“A lil tough love..I love it!!” he said on X (formerly Twitter).

That was the universal response to Rumph’s coaching style: Bring it on. He assumed his duties immediately after signing a three-year deal that will pay him $950,000 next year. As did new offensive line coach Matt Luke, who will make $975,000 next year as Thomas Austin’s replacement.

“He really fits what I was looking for in this hire,” Swinney said of Rumph, touting his NFL experience and Southeast recruiting expertise earlier this month. “We’ve had a great relationship for a long time now, and, honestly, he was a guy that almost came back a couple of other times over the years, but this is the right time.”

It’s part of a broader culture change in which Swinney’s brought in two prominent position coaches at salaries that’ll soon top $1 million as Clemson (8-4, 4-4 ACC) tries to get back on track after missing three straight College Football Playoffs from 2020-23 and slipping from the top echelon of the sport.

That starts in the Gator Bowl for Rumph, who hopes to stick around at Clemson and retire someday onto the shores of nearby Lake Keowee with his wife. With plenty of hard coaching — and harder loving — along the way.

“I’m still gonna be the person that I am,” Rumph said.

That much is clear.

2023 Gator Bowl game, TV info

Who: No. 22 Clemson (8-4, 4-4 ACC) vs. Kentucky (7-5, 3-5 SEC)

When: noon Friday

Where: EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.

TV: ESPN

Stream: Via ESPN or the ESPN app

Line: Clemson by 4.5