The Clemson Tigers lured Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen to take over their unit for the 2025 season.

It might seem odd to see a defensive coordinator for a team that reached the College Football Playoff semifinals to take a new job. But for new Clemson defensive coordinator Tom Allen, the decision was as simple as his family.

Allen did his first interviews with local media on Wednesday and took part in his first staff meeting since he was hired by head coach Dabo Swinney. He said he intends to start meeting with players on Thursday.

He isn’t a South Carolina native. In fact, Allen was born in New Castle, Ind., so serving as the head coach for Indiana for seven years was a dream come true.

But, he and his wife, Tracy, have two daughters and both of them live in the Carolinas. So, taking this job puts he and his wife closer to family.

“Our girls, they cried when they found out we were taking this job, because we’re close,” he said. “Those kinds of things, we don’t take them for granted.”

Allen has a long coaching career, which started in the high school ranks at Temple Heights in Florida in 1992. He eventually got back to Indiana in 1997, coaching at Marion High School and then Ben Davis High School.

He eventually moved into the college ranks, taking a defensive backs coach job at Division III Wabash. He finally became a college head coach for the first time with Indiana in 2017.

Between his high school and college stops before leading Indiana, he coached at 11 different schools and in two different states. It’s an itinerant life that Allen admitted was hard on his family.

He said at one point one of his daughters wouldn’t get out of the car as they were preparing to move.

After he was fired at Indiana, he moved to Penn State, where he served as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for the Nittany Lions. Under coach James Franklin, the Nittany Lions got into the first expanded 12-team CFP and reached the semifinals before they lost to Notre Dame last week.

Allen said he wasn’t looking for a new job. But the opportunity to move closer to his daughters and, in some sense, make up for lost time, was too good to pass up.

“It was totally unexpected,” Allen said. “Not everyone is going to understand it. And I respect that. But what I said earlier is the bottom line. It’s about my family and the timing of it all.”