Tennessee football: Top five candidates to replace Vols RB coach David Johnson

David Johnson has left Tennessee football for the Florida State Seminoles. Here are five potential replacements at running backs coach for the Volunteers.

There’s not as much staff attrition happening compared to what happened in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In fact, for right now, Tennessee football won’t have to replace a coordinator for the first time since 2014.

But attrition always comes, and the Vols can’t avoid it anymore than somebody else can. So with David Johnson, who has been with the program for the past two years, heading to Florida State, Rocky Top does have some offseason things on its plate.

Jeremy Pruitt won’t have to deal with the same stress of finding a new running backs coach that he had to deal with last year when finding a new offensive coordinator. However, it’s still a big deal for Tennessee football.

Johnson could be a big loss. His connections helped Rocky Top dominate recruiting in the Memphis area again. Although the UT program sells itself in the state, that by itself is something that can’t be overlooked and will be extremely tough to replace.

However, the Vols can replace Johnson. In this post, we’re going to look at potential connections and people who could do it. Familiarity with the Pruitt and the program along with potential are all factors coming into play.

Yes, there are former players who fit that mold. A large search firm across the country may not even end up being necessary for Pruitt to get the right person into the system. As we get set to look at the guys who could come in and do it, many of them already have connections to Pruitt or the program.

Which people are we talking about who fit that mold? What do they bring to the table? Let’s break that down here. This is our ranking of the five best candidates for Tennessee football to replace David Johnson with as running backs coach.