Vols welcome both new and familiar faces to coaching staff

Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt finalized his coaching staff for 2020. What does this mean for the Vols moving forward?

Now that the dust has settled, the Tennessee football team has all of its coaches in place for the 2020 campaign.

The Vols made multiple changes to their coaching staff over the last few weeks after deciding to bring some fresh faces on board for the next season.

Head coach Jeremy Pruitt returns for his third season at the helm, and will run it back with Chaney and Ansley holding down the offensive and defensive coordinator spots, but multiple position groups saw change take place.

Starting with the offensive side of the ball, VFL Jay Graham takes over for David Johnson leading the running back room. The former Tennessee All-SEC running back was hired away from Texas A&M after a few years down in College Station.

Graham and Pruitt worked together on the 2013 National Championship Florida State, so there’s already a level of familiarity between the two, added with the fact that he played for UT athletics director Phillip Fulmer during Tennessee’s heyday.

After serving as Tennessee’s Director of Football Programming for the past two years, Joe Osovet received a promotion to tight ends coach, replacing Brian Niedermeyer who moved to the defensive side of the ball.

Osovet worked behind the scenes of Tennessee’s offense after making his name as one of the top junior college coaches. 

In 2014 and 2017, Osovet won the Northeast Football Conference Coach of the Year award at both Asa (N.Y.) College and his alma mater Nassau (N.Y.) Community College.

Moving to the defensive side of the ball, Brian Niedermeyer made the switch from tight ends coach to inside linebackers coach, taking over for Kevin Sherrer. 

Niedermeyer served as tight ends coach in his first two years in Knoxville, earning 2019 National Recruiter of the Year by both ESPN and 247 Sports.

Niedermeyer isn’t a stranger to the defensive side of the ball. He worked as a defensive student coach in 2012 at his alma mater University of Arkansas Pine Bluff. He then went on to work under his current boss, Jeremy Pruitt, as a defensive graduate assistant at Georgia in 2015 and Alabama in 2016.

Jimmy Brumbaugh was brought in to take the reigns as the new co-defensive coordinator and coach the defensive line, replacing Tracy Rocker. Brumbaugh was brought over from Colorado where he served in the same capacity for the past two seasons.

Before his time in Boulder, the former All-SEC defensive lineman worked along with current Vols defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley at Kentucky. His other pit stops include LSU, Syracuse, Louisiana Tech, and East Mississippi Community College.

The final addition to the Vols’ 2020 coaching staff was Shelton Felton. Felton comes in to take over for Chris Rumph as outside linebackers coach.

Before a lone year at Akron last year working with outside linebackers and the defensive line, Felton was on Rocky Top in 2018 as a quality control analyst. 

He began his climb up the coaching ranks as a high school coach in Georgia, winning the 2016 Georgia Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year, the Recruit GA Coach of the Year and the Region 1AAA Coach of the Year awards.