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Tennessee football: 5 concerns with Vols revamped staff heading into 2019

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football’s new staff has generated a lot of buzz for Jeremy Pruitt’s second season. But there are some issues with the Volunteers’ assistants.

By lots of metrics, Tennessee football significantly upgraded its staff heading into 2019. The Vols have three new staff members, have changed every coordinator, and have five offensive and defensive positions under new leadership.

Simply put, Jeremy Pruitt did an overhaul heading into his second season. This isn’t the craziest thing ever, though. Pruitt was part of the Alabama Crimson Tide program when Nick Saban first took over, and he replaced two staff members after his first year, including his offensive coordinator.

By 2009, his third year, Saban had five assistants and coordinators at all three spots who were different from his 2007 staff. And they ended up winning the national championship. Heck, his staff this year will have nobody from its 2017 national championship squad.

So Tennessee football is not completely out of luck here. Sure, they’re almost certainly not going to win the national title this year or even in 2020. But history shows they can withstand the issues coming with the staff changes.

How substantial are those issues, though? That’s the question. Growing pains are a fundamental part of any staff change, and these changes are no different. Despite all the upgrades, the concerns are legitimate, and we’ll break them down here.

Our concerns for the new staff are based on the history of the new staff members and their track records at the positions they are coaching. We also look at specific things about them and what the Vols lost. There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you change lots of staff members. Just ask Derek Dooley in 2012 and Butch Jones in 2017.

Analyzing all of it, the staff changes are not 100 percent good news. Let’s break down why here. These are the five biggest concerns that come with the new staff changes to Tennessee football heading into the 2019 season.

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