Tennessee football: Five potential concerns over Vols hiring DL coach Jimmy Brumbaugh

4. No recent history of winning

Throughout the entire last decade, Jimmy Brumaugh only coached on two FBS teams that had winning seasons: the 2010 Syracuse Orange and the 2016 Kentucky Wildcats. One of his other years was at a junior college, when he coached at East Mississippi Community College, known as Last Chance U, back in 2012. The other seven years were all losing seasons.

In fact, over his 11 years as a defensive assistant at an FBS program, he has only had three winning seasons. He had one during his two-year stint with the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, ironically under head coach Derek Dooley, who would leave to take the Tennessee football job in 2010. With Syracuse and Kentucky each, he only had one.

To make him look worse, the Wildcats have only gotten better as a program under Mark Stoops since he left after 2016. Remember, they failed to make a bowl 2013 through 2015. Finally, since leaving Kentucky, things have only gotten worse. Brumbaugh has failed to be part of a winning team each of the last three years, which may end up being a major problem.

That includes Brumbaugh’s most recent season with the Colorado Buffaloes, Mel Tucker’s only year there, in which they went 5-7. But it also includes his previous two seasons with the Maryland Terrapins under DJ Durkin and Matt Canada, when they went 4-8 in 2017 and 5-7 in 2018. Also, that opens up a whole new issue we have to get to, and it’s the next concern.