Tennessee's first staff under Jeremy Pruitt saw some turnover, some of it forced internally and some of it just a function of guys leaving for other positions. Offensive coordinator Tyson Helton took the head coaching position at Western Kentucky, a school where he had previously served as the offensive coordinator. Safeties coach and special teams coordinator Charles Kelly returned home (sort of as he's from Alabama but played for Auburn) to Alabama to take a position with the Crimson Tide as the associate defensive coordinator and safeties coach. Cornerbacks coach Terry Fair was offered an off-field role on the staff that he declined, leading both sides to part ways. After the parting of the ways, Pruitt revealed that he was frequently having to lead the cornerback drills last season with Fair in place. This resulted in three new hires and three other staffers to see their duties shuffled in the wake of the shakeup in what has largely been viewed as an overall upgrading of the staff.
New to the staff:
Derrick Ansley, defensive coordinator, defensive backs - A rising star in the coaching ranks, Ansley served as the defensive backs coach under Jeremy Pruitt at Alabama prior to Pruitt accepting the head coaching job at Tennessee and Ansley taking over the secondary job with the Oakland Raiders. Ansley's first Power 5 position coaching job was with Tennessee in 2012, leading the secondary. That season, they produced 12 interceptions and 47 passes defended.
After that season, he took over at Kentucky, where they had an abysmal 2013 campaign that saw them intercept all of 3 passes and defending a conference-worst 31 passes while allowing a conference-worst 65.8% completion percentage. In 2014, they improved their numbers in a major way, producing 15 interceptions, 62 passes defended, and reducing the opponent completion percentage to 57.6%. The secondary took a small step back in 2015 in interceptions (11) and passes defended (59), but they finished 5th in the SEC in passing defense, improved in opponent completion percentage allowed (57.1%), and only allowed 14 passing touchdowns on the season. 2015 would also mark the first season in which Ansley was a co-defensive coordinator, a role he wouldn't assume again until his new position with Tennessee.
From there, Ansley took the job with Alabama alongside Jeremy Pruitt. In 2016, the secondary was among the nation's and conference's best with 16 interceptions, six of which were returned for touchdowns. They had 71 passes defended on the season, limited opponents to a 53.8% completion percentage, and finished the season with 15 touchdowns allowed to 16 interceptions. It was even better in 2017, where the Tide produced 19 interceptions, 85 passes defended, allowed the fewest passing touchdowns in the nation with just 8, and held steady on opponent completion percentage. They were also sixth nationally in passing yards per game allowed.
In his lone season in the NFL, he improved the Raider secondary, leading them to an improvement in interceptions (5 in 2017 to 14 in 2018) and passes defended (56 in 2017 to 73 in 2018), while also reducing the opponent completion percentage from 68.1% to 62.3% and a minor reduction in passing yards per game from 241.1 to 240.8 despite the team seeing their sack total drop from 31 in 2017 to just 13 in 2018.
Ansley's results and prior working relationship with Pruitt has led to Ansley taking the reins of the defense as the defensive play caller, a scenario that Pruitt was never fully comfortable with last season. Ansley will also be pulling double duty as he will handle the full secondary, one man filling the roles of two from last season. Ansley's results clearly speak for themselves as a secondary coach, and he has the trust of one of the better defensive minds in the country. To top it all off, Ansley has a strong reputation as a recruiter, particularly in the secondary, as well as a strong developer of talent.
Jim Chaney, offensive coordinator - Where to even begin with a 34-year coaching career. He had a 5-year stint with Cal State-Fullerton, a program that would be ended after his last year there in 1992. From there, he would resurface in 1995 at Wyoming before the job that first defined his career at Purdue.
At Purdue, he was known for his dynamic, pass-heavy spread offenses that finished in the top ten nationally in total offense six times and led the Big Ten in passing five times in nine seasons. Three of those seasons were led by Drew Brees, who completed 61.6% as a starter for 11,560 yards and 90 touchdowns against just 44 interceptions while also running for 891 yards and 12 touchdowns.
From Purdue, Chaney would head to the NFL for a three-year stint with the St. Louis Rams as the offensive line and tight end coach before returning to the college ranks in 2009 as the offensive coordinator on Lane Kiffin's Tennessee staff. His return to the college game would see a shift in philosophy to a more powerful and pro-style offensive system. After Kiffin left for USC, Chaney would remain under new Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley. During his four years as the offensive coordinator of the Vols, he would send a dozen players to the NFL. With Derek Dooley's dismissal, Chaney would find himself a free agent despite leading one of the best offenses in Tennessee's history.
Chaney would then join Bret Beilema's Arkansas staff, although this would never be an ideal fit as Beilema was looking for a run-heavy offense in the mold of the one he built at Wisconsin, however the talent left behind was recruited to run Bobby Petrino's pass-heavy scheme while Jim Chaney preferred to run a balanced system. This combination led to a miserably bad 2013 offense for the Hogs. While the offense looked much more balanced and stronger in running the football in 2014, Chaney and Arkansas parted ways after just two seasons.
A brief one-year stint at Pittsburgh proved to just be a layover for Chaney on his way back to the SEC, where he would spend the next three seasons as the offensive coordinator of the Georgia Bulldogs under Kirby Smart. In 2016, the offense was pretty much just alright. It was fairly balanced, but it wasn't particularly explosive and certainly didn't resemble the better offenses of Chaney. The next two seasons, the offense was very good, combining for 13,037 yards of total offense and 1,061 points of scoring offense. That is an average of 449.6 yards and 36.6 points per game over 29 games played. He also loosened up on the pure pro-style principles, beginning to integrate more of the spread and run-pass option princples that he had gotten away from.
Since returning to the college game, 27 of his players have drafted and all five of his draft-eligible starting quarterbacks have ended up on NFL rosters. He's also had 11 1,000 yard rushers in his ten seasons back in the college ranks. Chaney will be able to work with all position groups as needed as he won't be coaching a position, serving solely as the offensive coordinator. He has coached offensive line, tight end, and quarterback in the past, and he has a strong grasp over the principles for every position group, so his freedom to float between position groups in practices will be a huge bonus for the players and assistants.
Tee Martin, associate head coach, passing game coordinator, wide receivers - Since quarterbacking the Vols from 1998-99, including leading them to the 1998 National Championship, Martin has had a stint in the NFL before turning to coaching, where he has proven himself to be an elite recruiter and wide receiver coach as well as a developing talent as a coordinator.
He first entered the FBS coaching ranks in 2009 as the quarterbacks coach at New Mexico before heading to Kentucky in 2010 as the wide receiver coach, adding the passing game coordinator title in his second season with the Wildcats. While at Kentucky, he developed a star in Randall Cobb as well as Chris Matthews, a receiver who has bounced back and forth between the NFL and CFL after a one season stint in the AFL.
From there, Martin would join Lane Kiffin's staff at USC as the wide receiver coach, beginning an impressive recruiting and coaching run there. Within two years, he would add the passing game coordinator title before following it up with the offensive coordinator title two years later. Among the players he coached on the offense during his time at USC are current NFL players, including QBs Cody Kessler and Sam Darnold, RBs Ronald Jones, Javorius Allen, and Justin Davis, and WRs JuJu Smith-Schuster, Nelson Agholor, Marqise Lee, Robert Woods, and Deontay Burnett. 2018 would prove a rough season for Martin as the offensive coordinator, as the departures of Sam Darnold, Ronald Jones, and Deontay Burnett along with wide receiver Steven Mitchell and offensive linemen Nico Falah and Viane Talamaivao, all of whom at least got camp invites in the NFL. With the significant loss of talent, the offense was never able to recover and Martin was relieved of his playcalling duties mid-season and wasn't retained after the season.
Enter his alma mater, swooping in to land the former 247Sports Recruiter of the Year and former Broyles Award finalist. Yet again, he assumes the passing game coordinator role, one in which he has excelled in the past. He should be an excellent complement to Chaney in helping to coordinate the passing attack. He inherits a quality group of wide receivers as well, and as a former Vol he is now also the associate head coach for the school he took to a national championship as a player. He'll now look to do it again as a coach.
Returning staffers in new roles:
Chris Weinke, quarterbacks - Last year, Weinke found himself coaching the running backs, a position group he had never coached before. Although conventional knowledge tends to suggest that the running backs are the easiest position group to coach, Weinke is a former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback as well as a former NFL quarterback coach. Now he is coaching the position he should have been all along. Weinke had some success with quarterbacks during his time with the NFL's St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams, working with Nick Foles, Case Keenum, and Jared Goff in his two seasons with the Rams. After his time with the Rams, he joined the Alabama staff as an offensive analyst in 2017, where he helped to plan each week for the #15 scoring offense in the country. Before his stint in the NFL, he was the head coach at IMG Academy, an athletically focused preparatory school in Florida. During his time there, Weinke helped to launch the Academy as well as working in the offseason with NFL quarterbacks including Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, Teddy Bridgewater, Ryan Tannehill, and Kirk Cousins to name a few. After his Heisman Trophy campaign as a senior, he launched a seven-year NFL career, getting most of his playing time with the Carolina Panthers before spending his final NFL season with the San Francisco 49ers.
David Johnson, running backs - Johnson was hired to head up the receiving corps, and the receivers had a fairly solid season on the whole. However, with Weinke being moved to man the quarterbacks and the addition of Tee Martin, David Johnson was asked to take the helm of the running backs, a position he coached during his time at Tulane. While at Tulane, he coached Orleans Darkwa to the third-best single-season rushing performance in program history and Sherman Badie to a Freshman All-American season. Both have also moved on to spend some time in the NFL and Badie's CFL rights are also held by the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The majority of his coaching experience has been working with tight ends and wide receivers, but he has shown the ability to develop quality running backs when coaching the position. With pretty impressive raw material to work with, Johnson should be a good fit in the role for the 2019 season.
Kevin Sherrer, special teams coordinator, inside linebackers - Sherrer will retain his duties over his position group, but his coordinating duties have changed significantly. After serving as the co-defensive coordinator last season, Sherrer finds himself shifting his focus to special teams. He's never coached special teams before, but Pruitt and Sherrer have a lengthy background together that has created a degree of trust that makes Pruitt comfortable handing the duties to Sherrer. Sherrer will be replacing Charles Kelly in the role, who did a good job with the group in 2018. In 2018, Joe Doyle took over the punting duties and was a Ray Guy Award finalist. Marquez Callaway led the SEC in punt return average, and the Vols returned two punts for touchdowns. They also blocked 5 kicks and allowed the fewest punt return yards in the SEC. All-around solid unit, but there is room for improvement and maybe Sherrer is the man to lead them to those improvements. Pruitt has expressed the importance of special teams, and it's potentially noteworthy that he's handed the duties to his friend.
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