Three new faces will be patrolling the sidelines throughout ACC country next year: Steve Donohue at Boston College, Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest, and now Brad Brownell at Clemson.
Brownell was most recently the head coach of Wright State, but his first gig was at UNC-Wilmington. You may remember him as this guy:
That's him right after Drew Nicholas does this. Hopefully this trend of Maryland giving Brownell the dagger can continue well into his ACC coaching career.
Now, to the analysis side of it: Wright State is in Dayton, Ohio, so his displacement to South Carolina is slightly puzzling. As a member of the Horizon League, he has consistently finished behind Butler (no shame there), but without any major domination at the mid-major level, his hire doesn't inspire a ton of confidence. At first, I was skeptical of Donohue at Boston College, but after seeing the recent hires around the ACC, he should be plenty fine.
I don't know nearly enough about Brownell to pass judgment on him entirely - quite literally the first time I'd heard of him was about two or three days ago - but I will say he's not the possible ringer that Rick Stansbury was. He would've had me afraid; Brownell has me vigilant, but not shaking in my boots.
With his hire, the ACC coaching carousel has finally slowed. The three new faces on the sideline combined with no more Ed Davis and hopefully no more Kyle Singler means the conference may have a very different look next season.