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Tennessee football: Vols staff combines Bobby Petrino’s offense, Nick Saban’s defense

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the inside of Neyland Stadium during 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 inside of Neyland Stadium during 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 head coach has put together a dream staff for the Volunteers, combining Bobby Petrino’s offense and Nick Saban’s defense.

Imagine Bobby Petrino as your offensive coordinator and Nick Saban as your defensive coordinator. Tennessee football’s coaching staff is basically that. Jeremy Pruitt has put together a dream team to run his show.

If you’re going to compete with Nick Saban in the SEC, the dream is to have a brilliant offensive mind who can use great scheming to get him. However, the other side of that, as Phillip Fulmer once said, it’s hard to be cute and win in this league, so you need elite defenses. And you need to be able to recruit the SEC to get the talent to compete with Alabama. Well, if you’re Tennessee football, why not have all of that on one staff?

That’s what Pruitt has just done in Knoxville. The reports that Memphis Tigers wide receivers coach David Johnson has accepted the same position with the Vols means they’ve completed their on-field staff under Pruitt. And that staff does exactly what I suggested.

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Bobby Petrino was on the radar for many Vols fans as head coach for a long time. Then, in the botched coaching search, Jeff Brohm almost got the job. Brohm is a younger, scandal-free Petrino who used his offense to dominate as the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers’ head coach and then immediately turn around the Purdue Boilermakers in one year. He would’ve been a great hire, but it fell through.

But a couple of weeks later, after Fulmer hired Pruitt, Pruitt brought in Tyson Helton as offensive coordinator. The guy managing the quarterbacks and passing game for the USC Trojans was Brohm’s offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky. So he’s fluent in that offense. And now he’s in Knoxville.

As a result, Tennessee football fans can expect to see the same offense they would’ve seen had they hired Brohm. But this time, they can expect to see it with a Nick Saban defense. Why? Well, because you’ve got Jeremy Pruitt as your head coach!

And Pruitt’s experience is studying under Saban and Kirby Smart. He and Kevin Sherrer, the defensive coordinator who served as linebackers coach under Smart, will keep the same scheme. What about the position coaches?

Will Friend as offensive line coach, Brian Niedermeyer as tight ends coach and Robert Gillespie staying on keeps the physical, SEC culture on offense. After all, Friend and Niedermeyer both have ties to Nick Saban’s Alabama staff when the Tide overwhelmed people up front. David Johnson as wide receivers coach along with Helton give the Vols the schematic benefits.

Meanwhile, on defense, Pruitt has a unit built in his image. Sherrer is the defensive coordinator, and he brings with him from Georgia Tracy Rocker, a guy with NFL experience, to coach defensive line, Chris Rumph from Florida to coach linebackers and be co-DC, Florida State DC Charles Kelly to coach safeties and special teams, and then former Vol Terry Fair to coach cornerbacks. So he checks all the boxes with guys who have SEC experience, Saban proteges, elite recruiters and a former Vol on the staff to keep things in good shape.

Taking all this into account, Pruitt has an amazing staff. Petrino showed with the Arkansas Razorbacks that his offense can beat SEC elite level talent. However, combining that with actual SEC elite level talent and a Saban-style defense is scary. And that’s what Pruitt just did.

Next: 4 things Jeremy Pruitt must do to fix Vols

All of a sudden, Tennessee football has a collection of up and comers that make Pruitt’s staff potentially the best in the country. Again, they check all the boxes when it comes to recruiting and roots. Now, they have a major offensive schematic advantage as well. So the future is amazingly bright for Tennessee football.

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