The 5 worst head coaching hires in Clemson football history.

Clemson Tigers Football has employed some terrific head coaches, but there have also been some misses. The following are the five worst head coaching hires in program history.

Then there are some hires who had winning records but could also be put in the ‘bad hire’ category. Charley Pell turned Clemson’s fortunes around in the 1970s but then left abruptly to take over the Florida football program. It turns out he was also cheating, which further hurt the Clemson program.

In the long run, things worked out because Danny Ford took over for Pell and the Tigers won their first national championship in program history soon after., but Pell is not remembered fondly around Tigertown.

Here are the five worst head coaching hires in the history of Clemson Football.

Someone who was not present when Ken Hatfield was fired by Clemson University may look at the data and wonder what went wrong that they would fire a guy who had just ended an 8-3 regular season and won 70.7% of his games.

The first challenge Hatfield had when he arrived at Clemson was following Danny Ford, the youngest head coach to ever win a national championship. He was extremely beloved among the supporters, many of whom believed Ford was chased out of town because of an NCAA investigation that he was subsequently exonerated of.

Hatfield’s third season, 1992, saw the Tigers go 5-6 overall and win only three ACC games. This was Clemson’s first losing season since 1976. Tigers fans weren’t used to this.

Then there’s the reason I can personally relate to, having observed it firsthand my freshman year: football was incredibly dull. Hatfield ran the wishbone system, and while some teams had great success with it in the 1980s, it was becoming obsolete.

Higher-powered offensive schemes were emerging, and fans were having little joy at football games, despite the team’s 8-3 record in Hatfield’s final season. Not that the school chose a decent choice for his successor, mind you, but we’ll get to that soon.

The program’s leadership made the largest mistake by forcing Ford out, but hiring Hatfield was also a bad decision.