Will Friend traded Tennessee Football Volunteers for South Carolina Gamecocks.
Could it be a sign that the wheels are leaving Tennessee’s football program or is it more about personal connections? We’ll find out in the coming weeks, but for now, the Vols have a second slot to fill.
The last original UT member of Jeremy Pruitt’s first team in 2018, offensive line coach Will Friend, left to join Shane Beamer’s South Carolina Gamecocks team, the school announced on Sunday. Friend served as an offensive coordinator under current USC offensive coordinator Mike Bobo when Bobo was the head coach of the Colorado State Rams from 2015 to 2017.
Pruitt’s connection with Friend goes back to 1995 and 1996, when the two were teammates from Alabama Crimson Tide. Then, in 2014, when Friend was the Georgia Bulldogs ‘offensive line coach and Pruitt was the Dawgs’ defensive coordinator under UGA head coach Mark Richt. Both also trained at several high schools in Alabama before joining the group of college coaches.
With Friend’s departure, Tennessee football has only two team members on the field in 2018 still working with Pruitt, Chris Weinke and Brian Niedermeyer. However, the two assistant coaches are in different roles now.
Weinke trained running backs in 2018 before moving on to the quarterbacks in 2019 to replace Tyson Helton, who was the offensive coordinator and coach of the quarterbacks in 2018 and stepped down as head coach of Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Jim Chaney replaced Helton as the offensive coordinator.
Vols’ 2018 wide receiver coach David Johnson replaced Weinke as the running back coach. Tee Martin came to replace Johnson and added the role of coordinator of the passing game. However, Johnson then left to join Mike Norvell’s team with the Florida State Seminoles this year, so Jay Graham replaced Johnson.
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Meanwhile, Niedermeyer has coached tight teams until this year. However, he moved on to the coach of internal linebackers to replace Kevin Sherrer, who has held this role since 2018, but is now an assistant to the New York Giants. Sherrer also served as a defensive coordinator in 2018 before moving to special team coordinator in 2019, replacing Charles Kelly in that role.
Replacing Niedermeyer on tight ends, the coach was Joe Osovet, who had worked in an off-field role for the Vols in 2018 and 2019. Derrick Ansley replaced Sherrer as a defensive coordinator in 2019 and replaced Terry Fair and Kelly, who trained cornerbacks and security guards in 2018, also, acting in general as a secondary technician. Ansley still maintains that role.
With the departure of Friend, UT needs to replace the two assistants who train the trenches. Pruitt parted ways with defense coach Jimmy Brumbaugh in the middle of the season. Brumbaugh was hired to replace Tracy Rocker, who was another original member of the team, but left after the end of 2019.
Graham and Brumbaugh arrived as newbies last year along with Shelton Felton, who replaced Chris Rumph as coach of external linebackers. Rumph, like Sherrer, is now an assistant in the NFL. He’s with the Houston Texans.
So what does a friend’s departure mean? Is that another piece of evidence when it comes to pressing the panic button? We won’t go that far yet. Friend was in the last year of the contract and has a personal connection with the South Carolina team.
If more assistants leave Tennessee football, this could become a concern. For now, though, while there are many other reasons for Vol fans to panic, and while the turnover of assistants under Pruitt has been somewhat alarming, this in a vacuum is no reason to panic.