CLEMSON — Longtime NFL special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia is expected to take the same role at Clemson.
The 65-year-old left the Green Bay Packers last month after a four-season stint with the franchise. He has been in the NFL since 2002, including stops with the Buccaneers (2002-10), Chargers (2011-12), Cowboys (2013-17) and Raiders (2018-22).
Bisaccia was a running backs and special teams coach for Clemson from 1994-98, which followed a stint coaching specialists at South Carolina from 1989-1993.
The NFL vet’s talks with Clemson were first reported on March 1 by Packers reporter Gery Woelfel. Tiger Illustrated and TigerNet then confirmed on March 2 that Dabo Swinney had chosen Bisaccia, pending a background check and board of trustees approval.
Clemson's board of trustees has called a March 4 meeting of its compensation committee to approve a football coach's contract.
Swinney said last week as spring practice opened that he was “close” to finalizing a decision on a special teams coordinator to replace Will Gilchrist, who, along with several other staffers, followed former Tigers analyst John Grass to Samford when he became the head coach there in December.
“Close to a decision and close to finalizing that here pretty soon,” Swinney said on Feb. 25.
A native of Yonkers, N.Y., Bisaccia started his coaching career at Wayne State in Detroit as a defensive backs and special teams coach in 1983.
After stops at South Carolina, Clemson and Ole Miss (1999-2001), Bisaccia joined Jon Gruden and the Bucs for a Super Bowl title run in 2002. He stayed with the organization for the remainder of the decade, even when Raheem Morris became head coach in 2009.
Those Tampa teams featured multiple All-Pro specialists, including kicker Martin Gramatica and punters Tom Tupa and Josh Bidwell.
Bisaccia nearly returned to the college ranks in 2013 at Auburn but only lasted three weeks, jumping instead to the Cowboys to work for Jason Garrett through the 2017 season. There, Bisaccia developed kicker Dan Bailey to All-Pro Status in 2015.
Bisaccia then linked up with Gruden again in 2018 with the Raiders, coaching co-NFL scoring leader and All-Pro kicker Daniel Carlson.
Along with his more than two decades as a NFL special teams coordinator, Bisaccia was the interim head coach of the Raiders during the 2021 season following Gruden’s resignation. That year, the Raiders made the playoffs for the first time in five years.
The very next year, Bisaccia jumped to the Packers. General manager Brian Gutekunst said during the NFL Scouting Combine that the assistant’s exit was not expected.
“It caught us by surprise, but I think there’s some other opportunities he wanted to look at,” Gutekunst said. “Very appreciative for his run with us. I talked to you guys last time, how important to our culture he was, and I think he’s a fabulous football coach.”
Bisaccia joins a Clemson staff that currently doles out special teams responsibilities to a handful of assistants, including cornerbacks coach and co-special teams coordinator Mike Reed, assistant defensive backs and special teams coach DeAndre McDaniel, special assistant to the head coach and special teams coach Lorenzo Ward, specialists coach Ryan Allen and special teams analyst Jody Evans.
The 36-year-old Allen has NFL experience as well; he punted in the league from 2013-20, including a six-season stint with the Patriots.
Clemson’s special teams have featured highs and lows in recent years. The highlights include Nolan Hauser’s game-winning 56-yard field goal in the 2024 ACC title game, as well as Jack Smith’s emergence as a first-year starter in 2025.
But there have also been gaffes, including a 2022 loss to South Carolina that included both a trick-play kick return that was fumbled and a muffed punt to seal it. Clemson had several field goals blocked in 2024, and the Tigers also failed to recover an onside kick in the early going of a 2025 home loss to Syracuse.