Clemson will be without an important coach on Friday.
Offensive coordinator and coach Tony Elliott will miss the Sugar Bowl due to COVID-19 protocols, the Tigers announced Wednesday. He will not travel to New Orleans with the rest of the team later Wednesday afternoon.
So Clemson will face Ohio State without the luxury of having his 2017 Broyles Award-winning coordinator who has been playing plays on the sidelines all season. He could not communicate with the rest of the coaches during the game, and head coach Dabo Swinney made it clear how the offense would work without Elliott relying on it.
As of now, it is unclear whether Elliott tested positive for COVID-19 or whether it affected anyone else within the program. Both Ohio State and Clemson will release their status reports on Friday at some point before the game.
Elliott, who spoke to the media on Wednesday as part of a regular press conference, has been in Clemson since 2011. The 41-year-old assistant becomes a captain team captain as a senior when he plays from 2000 to the Tigers. 2003, and three years later he began a coaching career that never took him out of the state of South Carolina. After joining the South Carolina States and Furman, he joined Clemson’s coaching staff in 2011 as coach for the fullback. He was then promoted by Swinney to Co-Offensive Coordinator in 2015 before becoming the only offensive coordinator earlier this year when co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott left for South Florida.
Since Elliott began his coordination duties half a decade ago, the Sugar Bowl will be the first time Swinney will not have him in the stadium for a game.
Ohio State-Clemson is expected to kick off ESPN with a national championship at 8 p.m.