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Tennessee Football: Top 5 Candidates Who Should Replace Mike DeBord as Vols Offensive Coordinator

By Caleb Calhoun

Oct 15, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones runs on to the field before the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 15, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones runs on to the field before the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports /
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Nov 26, 2016; Corvallis, OR, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Mark Helfrich walks onto the field before the game against the Oregon State Beavers at Reser Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 26, 2016; Corvallis, OR, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Mark Helfrich walks onto the field before the game against the Oregon State Beavers at Reser Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports /

1. Mark Helfrich

This is really a no-brainer. All the other guys on the list are great, but none of them have the track record that Mark Helfrich does as offensive coordinator.

The recently fired head coach from the Oregon Ducks never had a problem putting up tons of points and turning games into basketball scores. With the Vols already halfway in on the spread under Butch Jones along with their belief in analytics, why not go all-in?

Helfrich from Oregon would take them all-in and bring Pac-12 offenses into the SEC.

Remember that he took over as offensive coordinator in 2009 when Chip Kelly became head coach, and while before he got there the Ducks would have a Top 10 offense every few years, he turned them into a Top 5 offense every year from 2010 through 2015.

And no, it wasn’t all with Marcus Mariota. Remember, before that he had Darren Thomas, who led the Ducks to the No. 1 offense overall in 2010 and the national championship game, where they came within a field goal of winning.

He also did it in 2015 with Vernon Adams Jr., who is more of a pocket passer. So he showed his ability to adapt to different styles of quarterbacks and keep the offense elite.

In fact, while he took bits of brilliance from Chip Kelly, he then passed on his own information to Scott Frost, who used his bright offensive mind to lead an unprecedented turnaround as a head coach in Orlando with the UCF Knights.

This year, with a new offensive coordinator and a brand new cast of characters, the offense naturally took a huge drop-off.

But it still remained in the Top 30 in the nation in what was clearly a fluke year if you look at Helfrich’s overall body of work.

If he could put up those numbers at Oregon, imagine what he could do with SEC talent that Tennessee football is able to recruit, especially when there are so many other bad coaches in the conference that aren’t used to seeing his style on a weekly basis.

This would be incredible to watch.

As a result, Butch Jones needs to hire Helfrich immediately. We saw at Oregon that it may take a year for his offense to be fully installed, but given that Joshua Dobbs just graduated, the Vols have time.

Helfrich is the dream coordinator anybody would want. He actually is a more proven offensive mind in college than Kelly is.

So Jones should snag him now while he has the chance. There is no better choice to be the new Tennessee football offensive coordinator.

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