Mike Ekeler Discusses His Special Teams Philosophy, Decision to Become a ST Coordinator, and More

Josh Heupel introduced his five defensive assistants to the media on Monday in an availability spanning over an hour and a half. During that time, each coach answered various questions about their past, what lies ahead on Rocky Top and plenty more. 

"Our outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler, a guy that I've known dating back to our time together at Oklahoma. You just look at his track record of where he's been and the success that they've had," Josh Heupel said of Mike Ekeler during his defensive staff's introductory press conference. "Another guy that's had coordinator experience on the defensive coordinator position, but also has done it on the special teams side coming from North Texas. But, he has been inside of this league and handled special teams at Georgia when he was there with Coach (Mark) Richt as well and brings a tremendous amount of knowledge to the special teams side of it here in our program."

How Ekeler will run Tennessee's special teams unit was a hot topic of discussion with the high-energy, high-intensity assistant coach. 

Before we dive into that, it is important to know why Ekeler chose the special teams route, which he offered up during the availability. 

"Well, going back, when they added the 10th coach, that's really when I decided to go the special teams route because I had always gone linebackers, defensive coordinator and so forth," Ekeler said of the decision. "I've always loved special teams, but at that point, a lot of coaches hadn't put the emphasis on them, and I saw it as an opportunity."

"That's kind of how I made my name as a player, and I love that aspect of it. You get to coach every single player on the team, and you get to teach them what I call transferable skills," Ekeler continued. "So, a kickoff, for example, is no different. We'll pull a clip of the receiver stemming a corner and stepping on his toes, running a post-cut. Guys, it's all you're doing. It's the same thing. We'll pull a clip of a linebacker setting up a block and looking him in the eyes and sticking him, and it's all about space. It's all about where's the ball? Where's the block? How much space do I have? Teaching them relationships. To sum it up, you're teaching the entire team all the fundamentals of the ball, so that's what I really enjoy. Working with every player and getting out there, and the other thing that's fun about it, is you got one shot at this. It's not like offense and it's not like defense where you have three opportunities. You've got one shot, so your chili better be hot. You better be ready to rock and roll, and I enjoy that because I wake up about 3 a.m. every day and I don't need a cup of coffee. I'm ready to go."

So what does Ekeler expect from his unit this fall?

"One thing that we'll do is, we'll play our tails off and we're going to be all about technique, we're going to play hard and we're going to play clean," He said. "Just having watched every clip last year of our special teams, I really feel like they really have a good foundation and good culture from the special teams standpoint. Guys played hard, and I think we've got some really good skill players, and I'm excited to get out there in spring practice and work with them."

Over the years, some of the best special teams units featured star players from the offense and defense within their ranks. Looking back at last season, Jaylen Waddle and Devonta Smith, both soon-to-be first-round picks, played key roles for Alabama's return unit. At Tennessee, Bryce Thompson, Ty Chandler, and Eric Gray all logged time for Tennessee in this game phase. Will that trend continue with Ekeler? 

"In the past, where I've been, we never used a lot of starters," he said. Here's the reason, you have an opportunity to develop your entire roster and leave some tread on the tires of your starters. We are going to use exactly who we need to be the best in the conference. That's the fun part of spring ball. My job as the special teams coordinator is to identify every single player on our roster, identify their skillsets. That what we will do, and we will plug them in.