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Tennessee football: Five potential concerns over Shelton Felton as Vols OLB coach

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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Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images /

Jeremy Pruitt confirmed Tennessee football hiring Shelton Felton as outside linebackers coach. Here are potential concerns over him joining the Volunteers.

A week and a half after news reports leaked the hires, Tennessee football confirmed that Shelton Felton and Jimmy Brumbaugh were replacing Chris Rumph and Tracy Rocker as outside linebackers and defensive line coaches respectively. Felton is back at UT after serving in an off-field role back in 2018 under Jeremy Pruit.

The Vols have lots of reasons to be excited over these hires, and we have gone into detail what is great about many of them. However, as we continue to say, no hire is perfect, and not every hire works out. Fans on Rocky Top have known for years how staff changes can derail a program.

That holds true for Pruitt as well, despite the great moves he has made for Tennessee football in two short years. At any point, all the gutsy staff changes he has made could come back to bite him with one wrong move. It happened to Phillip Fulmer in 2008 with Dave Clawson and Derek Dooley in 2012 with Sal Sunseri.

Those guys, in particular Clawson, weren’t particularly even bad at their job. They just didn’t fit with the system. Could Felton be the hire that hurts Pruitt? Well, we don’t know. But there are lots of things related to him that should raise people’s eyebrows as he gets set to replace Rumph.

In this post, we’re going to break down all the things that could draw worry over the hire. To be fair, we would say overall he is a good hire. However, we have to bring balance to every move that Pruitt made, and if every coach has some drawbacks, Felton surely has some.

As a result, we’re going to take a look at those drawbacks in this post. The drawbacks could be anything, whether it be his experience, track record, or specific incidents. Everything is on the table when it comes to things like this.

So what’s on the table for Felton? How much should Vols fans be on edge about him? Let’s break that all down here. These are the five potential concerns over Tennessee football hiring Shelton Felton as outside linebackers coach.

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