Tennessee football: Top 5 remaining potential OC candidates for Vols

Technically, Matt Canada is still the offensive coordinator for the Maryland Terrapins. But with the hire of Mike Locksley as head coach, you have to think he’ll be gone soon. If Locksley doesn’t replace him, you’d assume Canada will want to leave out of bitterness over not getting the head coaching job.

Either way, Tennessee football has a lot of room to work with here to lure Canada to Knoxville. The guy has SEC experience already as the LSU Tigers’ offensive coordinator, and that didn’t work out only because Canada clashed with Ed Orgeron.

It’s not likely that Canada would clash with Jeremy Pruitt, who just wants somebody to run the offense while he focuses heavily on the defense. And don’t think that Canada isn’t a great offensive mind.

He had the Terps averaging nearly 29 points a game with two quarterbacks who couldn’t throw the ball and a litany of distractions. They dropped over 50 on the Ohio State Buckeyes and were a bad throw on a great two-point call away from winning the game.

Before that, don’t forget that Canada made Nathan Peterman look like an NFL quarterback, upsetting Deshaun Watson and the national champion Clemson Tigers with him in 2016 as the Pitt Panthers’ offensive coordinator. We know how bad Peterman was in the NFL and with the Vols. So the guy can coach offense, and he’d be a huge pickup for Rocky Top.