By Johnny Falduto
CLEMSON - After a Board of Trustees meeting on Monday morning, Clemson officially announced the hirings of Matt Luke and Chris Rumph onto the football staff. Luke will fill the vacated offensive line position coach after last Wednesday’s firing of Thomas Austin, and Rumph will take over as the defensive ends coach after head coach Dabo Swinney and Lemanski Hall mutually agreed to part ways.
Matt Luke
Luke, a 47-year-old Gulfport, Mississippi native, most recently served as the associate head coach and offensive line coach under Kirby Smart at Georgia from December of 2019 to February of 2022. He stepped down from the position to spend more time with his family following Georgia’s 2021 National Championship and has been away from the game ever since.
His coaching career began as a Grad Assistant at his alma mater, Ole Miss, for the 1999 season. In 2000, he took a job with Murray State as an offensive line coach, but returned to Ole Miss following the 2001 season to coach the offensive line and tight ends under head coach David Cutcliffe. His association with Cutcliffe would continue at his next two stops as OL/TE coach at Tennessee (2006-07) and co-OC/OL coach at Duke (2008-11).
In each of his four seasons as the offensive line coach at Duke, his offensive line ranked among the ACC’s top five in fewest sacks allowed, including finishing third in 2009 and 2010.
Luke would return to Ole Miss as the co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach in 2012, helping oversee an offense that broke the then-school record for total offense (473.3 YPG) and third in the SEC in passing (283.3 YPG), finishing top 25 in FBS in both categories. In 2015, his offensive line helped the Rebels set program records for scoring (531 points), touchdowns (68), total offense (6,731 YDS), passing yards (4,351), and passing touchdowns (35), and finish first in the SEC and top ten nationally in scoring (40.8 PPG), total offense (517.8 YPG) and passing (334.7 YPG). In 2016, Luke was ranked eighth amongst recruiters by 247Sports.
In 2017, Luke was named the interim head coach at Ole Miss after Hugh Freeze was forced to resign. Following a 6-6 season, he was officially named the 37th head coach at Ole Miss, and his first two recruiting classes finished in the top 25 nationally. While recruiting remained on the uptick, the lack of on-field results led to Luke’s dismissal from Ole Miss following the 2019 season, and he joined Georgia’s staff shortly thereafter.
According to his bio on the Georgia football website, Luke mentored 42 All-League selections and 27 NFL Draft picks prior to his arrival in Athens, including first-round selections Lamery Tunsil of Ole Miss and Laken Tomlinson of Duke.
According to 247Sports, Luke has been the primary or secondary recruiter in the commitments of five 5-Star prospects (four of which were offensive tackles) and twelve offensive linemen who ranked inside the top ten nationally for their position.
Chris Rumph
Rumph, a 51-year-old, St. Matthews, South Carolina native, has served as the defensive line coach for the Minnesota Vikings since 2022 following one-year stints with the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears in his professional coaching career. Prior to taking the job with the Texans in 2020, he spent nearly 20 years at the collegiate level, where he worked with 25 NFL Draft picks, including three first round-selections and one Pro Bowler.
Rumph began his coaching career at his alma mater, South Carolina, as a Grad Assistant in 1997. He would go on to coach his former high school for five years before returning to the collegiate ranks as a DB Coach for South Carolina State in 2002. He then moved on to become the OLB Coach at Memphis from 2003-2005, where he helped guide the defense to an FBS top ten finish in total defense in 2003.
Rumph then took the defensive ends position coach job at Clemson in 2006, where he worked with nine NFL Draft picks and four All-ACC selections in his five-year career with the program. Clemson’s defense ranked among the top 25 nationally in scoring defense and total defense in each of his five seasons at Clemson.
Rumph would then go on to spend three seasons as the defensive line coach at Alabama under Nick Saban, where he helped guide the Crimson Tide to back-to-back BCS National Championships in 2011 and 2012. During his time in Tuscaloosa, Rumph coached six NFL Draft picks and helped guide the Tide’s 2011 defense that was one of the most dominant in the history of college football, allowing just 8.2 points and 183.6 total yards per contest, the fewest by an FBS team in records dating back to 1996.
After his run at Alabama, Rumph spent a single season as the assistant head coach and defensive line coach at Texas, where his defensive line ranked 12th in the nation with 40 sacks. As the defensive line coach at Florida in 2015, his defensive line would again reach the 40-sack mark, which ranked fifth nationally and tied for the sixth highest in school history.
Rumph’s last collegiate stint before his jump to the pros was at Tennessee as the co-DC and OLB coach, where he led the Vols defense to jump 74 spots in run defense in his first season with the program.
According to 247Sports, Rumph has been either the primary or secondary recruiter in 15 commitments that ranked inside the top-ten nationally for their position group, mostly along the defensive line.
