Jeremy Pruitt and the Tennessee football Volunteers may lose many assistant coaches.
This always happens to Tennessee football just before a head coach’s final year. Derek Dooley had his staff poached in 2011 and was then fired before the 2012 season ended. Butch Jones had his staff poached in 2016 and was then fired before the 2017 season ended.
Heck, Phillip Fulmer lost David Cutcliffe, Kurt Roper, Matt Luke and Trooper Taylor at the end of the 2007 season and was then fired in 2008. Well, now, all signs point to the same thing getting ready to happen to Jeremy Pruitt coming off his 3-7 campaign in 2020.
Right now, Tennessee football has two coaching vacancies after Pruitt fired defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh midseason and then offensive line coach Will Friend left for the South Carolina Gamecocks at the end of the season. It’s worth noting that Friend immediately left USC, along with Mike Bobo, and joined Bryan Harsin’s new staff with the Auburn Tigers.
Sure, the Vols brought in Kevin Steele this week, but Steele has never coached either of those positions. That suggests that Pruitt is preparing to have to replace another coach, but who could that coach be? Well, John Brice of Football Scoop reported Wednesday that UT assistants have met with other programs. Here’s exactly what Brice said.
"Tennessee still could have multiple assistant coaching positions open in the coming days and weeks. The Vols have two assistant coaches on expiring contracts, wideouts coach Tee Martin and linebackers coach Brian Niedermeyer, and, sources confirmed to FootballScoop, other Vols assistant coaches have spoken with additional college football programs about leaving Rocky Top to join their staffs."
Pay attention specifically to the names Brian Niedermeyer and Tee Martin. Niedermeyer is the Vols’ inside linebackers coach. Steele does have experience coaching linebackers, so you could see Pruitt preparing to replace him.
Now, it’s still up in the air on how Tennessee football was able to bring Steele Board anyway given the fact that they are in the midst of a hiring and contract extension freeze due to the ongoing investigation into the program for recruiting violations, according to last week’s report from Mark Schlabach of ESPN. However, there may be a loophole.
Schlabach’s report mentioned a freeze for filling vacancies at the time. Again, that would be offensive and defensive line coaches. What if the hire of Steele was to fill a future vacancy and a way for Pruitt to get around it, and what if Niedermeyer is about to create that future vacancy? Okay, it may sound crazy, but nothing is beyond the pale on Rocky Top at this point.
Moving past Steele, though, Brice’s words on Football Scoop were significant. He mentioned Martin and made it seem like multiple other Vols assistants are looking at other schools. Who are those other assistants, and how deep does this go?
Already, UT has lost multiple staff members. Brumbaugh and Friend are gone, and for what it’s worth assistant strength coach Byron Jerideau is also gone. Steele seems like he is coming on board to fill another vacancy that hasn’t yet been made public.
Then you have the wave of transfers. Sure, many of them, including Jarrett Guarantano, were not likely to start next year. Others, including Ty Chandler and Deandre Johnson, would have played but weren’t likely to be feature players at their positions.
Wanya Morris, however, was, and he is gone. Shawn Shamburger almost left and will be. Feature players transferring can be a sign of a declining program, but it can also be a sign that they are aware of certain staff members getting ready to leave.
At this point we’re talking about two certain on-field vacancies, potentially three, and three certain overall vacancies, potentially four. We’re also talking about key players leaving the program. Add in Brice’s report, and it looks like Tennessee football is about to replace a lot of staff members. If that happens, it’ll be the end of Pruitt. He’ll have no shot in 2021. Mass staff changes always fail.