CLEMSON -- In the immediate aftermath of being jilted, everything is viewed through the emotion of losing the person who did the jilting.
In assessing the value of Nick Eason, it's natural to immediately set a value relative to the value of Todd Bates.
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As in: "We got an upgrade at defensive tackles coach with the abrupt departure of that bad guy Bates and the arrival of this lovable guy Eason."
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Feel totally free to look at it that way. It's what fans do, and far be it from us to say you're wrong to view it in those emotional terms.
But here two months after the news that rocked Clemson's world -- Bates bolting for Oklahoma less than a month after he got a big raise and a promotion to assistant head coach -- it feels like the right take on this is a take that doesn't involve Bates at all.
As in, this feels so much more about Eason than the guy whose vacancy he filled.
Look: Bates leaving Clemson was not much different than most transactions that occur in the coaching world. This is a business, and Bates concluded that a promotion to co-defensive coordinator and a more prominent role was best for him and his family.
There will of course be endless comparisons between Clemson's defense and Oklahoma's defense over the next few years as the Brent Venables era takes hold in Norman. The competitive juices will flow, of course.
But big-picture, what Venables is doing at Oklahoma and how he is doing it is essentially a love letter to the way Dabo Swinney has done it at Clemson.
He's borrowing quite a lot of pages from Swinney's manual. And yes, he's taken some coaches including Bates.
Ultimately this should make Clemson fans beam with pride and even some disbelief: The head coach at Okla-freaking-homa is using the methods from little old Clemson to try to rescue the Sooners from Lincoln Riley's cold-blooded abandonment.
That's a long-winded way of explaining why that topic is one thing, and Eason is another.
Eason visited with reporters for almost 30 minutes after last night's practice, and before it was even over I typed this text to Cris Ard:
"My goodness. This might be the best interview ever."
Not just a "work the room" type of best interview ever. But a self-deprecating, utterly interesting, and powerfully resonant type of interview.
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As in: If he were not a highly-paid college football assistant coach and, say, a server at a restaurant you'd still walk away knowing you'd probably never forget the conversation.
Tyler Davis said earlier yesterday that Eason has brought some unorthodox techniques, focusing much more on the tackles using their hands.
Unorthodox would probably be a good word to describe him as a whole.
He volunteers that he's gained 80 pounds since last summer, and when someone follows up on that he explains that he let his weight go amid the trauma of losing his grandmother and close friend Altroy Bodrick within a close window of time.
Just yesterday he made the switch to a vegan, juice-based diet. But not before going on a major binge at all his favorite dining spots, just to put that all to rest.
He plays bass guitar.
He has some aspirations of being a funeral home director and has books on embalming techniques in his office.
In recent conversations with those close to him, including Bryant McNeal and Bill D'Andrea, we learned about his love for community service and how he used his platform as a Clemson player to reach out to young people.
We could go on and on, and surely those who knew him in his playing days here could as well.
You could call him Dabo's resident renaissance man.
You could certainly call him a Clemson man.
Feel totally free to compare and contrast him with his predecessor, to jump at the chance to say he's better than the guy he replaces. To keep score, as fans love to do.
To us, at least, it feels like a true appreciation of Eason's presence is to totally separate it from what led him here in the first place.
It feels like he belongs here, like he's the perfect fit.
And that's really it.
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