Jeremy Pruitt‘s coaching staff up on Rocky Top will have a decidedly different look to it when the 2019 season kicks off.
One of the most noteworthy staff announcements Friday afternoon involved Derrick Ansley, who was hired last week as the replacement for dismissed cornerbacks coach Terry Fair. Not only will Ansley serve as Tennessee’s defensive backs coach, but he’ll also be the Vols’ defensive coordinator. Not only that, but Ansley has also been designated as UT’s defensive playcaller, the duties of which were held by Pruitt in his first season as head coach in 2018.
One of the two co-defensive coordinators from a year ago, Chris Rumph, will retain that title as well as his duties as outside linebackers coach. The other co-coordinator on that side of the ball, Kevin Sherrer, will lose that particular designation but remain on as inside linebackers coach. Additionally, he’ll now serve as special teams coordinator.
Pruitt’s former special teams coordinator, Charles Kelly, left for a job at Alabama earlier this offseason. Kelly was also UT’s safeties coach, a job that will be rolled into Ansley’s all-encompassing defensive backs duties.
On the other side of the ball, Jim Chaney, as previously reported, will be Pruitt’s new offensive coordinator, but he won’t be in charge of any position groups as Pruitt will now employ a total of six offensive assistants.
Tee Martin, whose hiring as an unspecified offensive assistant was also previously announced, will serve as wide receivers coach. The Vols’ former assistant at that position, David Johnson, will move to running backs while the former assistant manning that position, Chris Weinke, moves to quarterbacks.
UT’s quarterbacks were previously coached by Tyson Helton, the offensive coordinator who left Knoxville in late November to become the head coach at Western Kentucky.
There are only two offensive assistants who remain in the same jobs as a year ago — Will Friend (offensive line) and Brian Neidermeyer (tight ends).