Tennessee football: Ranking all 10 assistant coaches on Vols 2019 staff

The on-field production of Brian Niedermeyer’s unit last year was not where it needed to be. That’s why he’s not higher on this list. After all, Tennessee football’s best receiving tight end was Dominick Wood-Anderson, and he only had 17 receptions for 140 yards along with two touchdowns.

All the Vols’ tight ends as a unit only had 225 receiving yards with three touchdowns. But they also had a key fumble, the Austin Pope fumble out of the back of the end zone against the Florida Gators, and they were horrible when it came to blocking.

Simply put, if it were just about on-field performance, at this point, we’d have Niedermeyer only one spot above Will Friend and maybe even below him. However, Niedermeyer was limited by the offense Tyson Helton wanted to run and the personnel he had.

On top of that, he gets a huge jump for his recruiting. Niedermeyer was the 247Sports National Recruiter of the Year, which by itself vaults him into the middle of the pack. You often times hire tight ends coaches to specifically recruit anyway.

This year, Niedermeyer has a chance to shoot way up the list as well. The new offensive system is likely to limit the number of tight ends on the field but incorporate them into the passing game more, so they can get into more of a rhythm and rack up lots of stats.