Tennessee’s technical committee officially has another vacancy. Offensive lineman Will be friend, one of the members of Jeremy Pruitt’s original technical team with the Vols, was officially announced as the new coach of the offensive line on the team of the new Gamecocks trainer Shane Beamer on Sunday. The friend’s connection to South Carolina is through the interim coach / offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, with whom Friend trained in Georgia and Colorado before joining the Tennessee team in December 2017.
Friend was nearing the end of his original three-year contract in Tennessee. His salary was $ 800,000 a year during his three-year stint with the Vols. His departure will give Tennessee and Pruitt and a second slot in the team to fill with a defensive line technician also needed after the resignation of the Vols Jimmy Brumbaugh in October, just eight months and four games after being signed in February.
Former Pruitt’s teammate in Alabama in the 1990s, Friend worked with Bobo, who is expected to remain on Beamer’s team in South Carolina, as a Georgia offensive line coach for four seasons (2011-14) before continuing. him to Colorado State, where he was the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator for Rams for three seasons (2015-17). The Mississippi native was a graduate assistant in Georgia for two seasons and worked at Gardner-Webb and UAB before returning to the Bulldogs.
“Will has a history of developing excellent lineworkers during his coaching career,” Beamer said in a statement to South Carolina. “He knows what it takes to compete in the SEC and brings the momentum and energy that we want in our team. . “
Expectations for the Tennessee offensive line were very high going into the 2020 season, as the Vols boasted veterans on the All-SEC guard Trey Smith and sixth year center Brandon Kennedy and young talents in old five-star offensive tackles Wanya Morris and Darnell Wright added another former five-star perspective on Georgia’s transfer Cade Mays.
However, the group struggled for consistency and largely fell short of high expectations. Tennessee qualified only ninth in the SEC in a fast attack (141.5 yards per game, slightly below an average of 144.2 yards in 2019) and allowed 29 bags, the third highest in the SEC. The Vols had some great field games against Missouri (232 running yards), Auburn (222) and Vanderbilt (212), but scored just 1 yard less against Georgia, averaging 2.4 yards per load against Florida and just 24 yards against Texas A&M on Saturday.
Friend helped the Vols hire Wright and Morris in 2018 and was also the top recruiter for four-star offensive line prospects. Jerome Carvin, Jackson Lampley and Cooper Mays. Its best signatories of 2020 included athletes Jimmy Holiday from Mississippi and Dee Beckwith outside Alabama. Among Tennessee’s first signatories in 2021, Friend was the main recruiter for William Parker and the secondary recruiter for J’Marion Gooch.
Together with friend, wide receivers trainer Tee Martin and internal linebacker trainer Brian Niedermeyer are Tennessee assistant coaches, whose contracts expire at the end of January.