Opening Statement:
“Like every year, this time of year you have changes on your coaching staff. We had some guys that took opportunities for themselves that gave them a better opportunity. If you look at our staff, we have 16 National Championships that our coaches have been associated with, 29 conference championships, coached over 190 draft picks including over 30 first round selections and have 66 All-Americans. I think that speaks highly to the player development that our staff has been associated with and the programs that they have been around. We’re excited to have these guys. We have shuffled a few guys around on our staff. Offensively, we’re going to go with six guys on offense. Jim Chaney is going to be the Offensive Coordinator and he’s going to be able to coach every position. I think that’s going to be important. Chris Weinke is going to coach quarterbacks. Look at his time as a player and the opportunity he has had as a coach in the NFL with the guys he has been around. The quarterback position is a very important position to have one guy coaching it all the time. If you have an Offensive Coordinator coaching it, sometimes you are worried about the splits of the wide receiver or are you getting in the right blocking combination up front. Having a guy who specifically coaches quarterbacks with Chris’ expertise, I think he is going to bring value and it is going to make our football team that much better. David Johnson is going to move from wide receivers to running backs. He has coached that position at a couple of different spots along the way. He is a guy that did a tremendous job for us on the field this past season with the demand he had for the position he coached. Brian Niedermeyer will coach the tight ends. Tee Martin will coach the wide receivers. He will also have passing game coordinator and assistant head coach responsibilities. Will Friend will continue to coach the offensive line. Defensively, Derrick Ansley will be our Defensive Coordinator and coach the defensive backs. He’ll have all four guys. Kevin Sherrer will move from Defensive Coordinator to Special Teams coach and coach inside linebackers. Kevin brings a very unique background. Like me, he was a high school coach where you have to coach everything so, he has done this before. Special teams is a very important part of the game and I think we did a very good job with that last year. We want to continue to stay on the trajectory that we were. He’s the guy that I felt like best suited that spot. If you look at what we did last year defensively, I don’t know exactly how many spots we improved defensively but, I think it was somewhere in defense from 119th to 49th. We improved tremendously defensively. Moving forward in terms of where we want to be from a special teams and team responsibility wise, he is going to be the guy that best fits that. Tracy Rocker will continue to coach the defensive line and Chris Rumph will be the outside linebackers coach and Co-Defensive Coordinator. We lost some guys in our off-field spots and we added some guys. We are really excited about everyone who is associated with our program. We are having a really good off-season. We’re excited to move forward and start with spring football on March 7th.”
On staff and how it better positions the team for success:
“Having six guys offensively is important. When you have an offensive coordinator like Jim who could coach any position. If the running backs need to work on something, tight ends, quarterback or whatever position it is. He can bounce around and do that kind of like myself on defense. I’m really the fifth assistant on the defensive side of the ball. We have someone that is in charge of everything but, if there is something that I see that needs to be tweaked or fixed I can oversee it.”
On the main attributes for the new coaches:
“I think it starts with player development. You have to be good teachers, and our guys are really good teachers. We have done a good job with getting guys that are familiar with a positions that they coach. If you look at their background, 16 national championships for our staff to be a part of is a lot. I do not know how many more staffs out there have many more than that. Being good teachers, good coaches and good recruiters. we have hit it with all of the guys.”
On the goals initially for spring ball with the new staff:
“As a staff, we have hit the ground running. There is really a lot of carry over especially on the offensive side of the ball. We have added Jim (Chaney), but some of the things he has done and some of the things we did last year. He has a very unique way in a teaching progression. He is very efficient in his time and his words. It is simple. Our coaches and players are excited in the direction we are going. Defensively, when you talk about Derrick Ansley, he is a guy that was a graduate assistant for me for two years then the defensive backs coach. We are very familiar with each other. It is good to work from the back to the front. He brings a lot of experience, and coached a lot of really good players.”
On Derrick Ansley and his work ethic:
“Derrick has been in very high demand the past several years. He was the highest-paid DB coach in the NFL after only being there for one year. He is a guy that is ready for this. He has been ready for this quite some time. With the fact that with Derrick, Kevin, Chris and Tracy in one room, I can already see the cohesiveness together. They communicate well together and they have all worked together. Tracy is probably the only one that has not worked with Derrick, but he was a coach at Troy State when Derrick played. So, everybody knows each other. We have had a really productive last week in getting ready for spring ball. I think we are headed in the right direction. Derrick will call the defense this fall.”
On the difference on going from three voices to two in the secondary:
“Derrick is the defensive back coach, but one thing you need is another guy back there that can help because when you do individual drills, for the safeties or corners, are really different. So, somebody has got to run the safeties drills and corner drills. Last year, I ran most of the corner drills. We will continue on that path. We have a young graduate assistant, Nate Andrews, who played for me at Florida State and he is a guy that has a very bright future also. That gives us three guys back there.”
On if he optimistic on if Solomon and Gibbs will be eligible:
“I am really not that familiar with what is going on. We will see. That will be up to the people that review those situations.”
On why he chose to hand over the defensive play calling duties to Derrick:
“Derrick’s heart is in college football. He is a tremendous recruiter. He has passion for young people and is a very good teacher. He had lot of opportunities to leave the Oakland Raiders this offseason and he chose to stay. The opportunity to be the Defensive Coordinator here and to work with the men on our staff is something he could not turn down.”
On why he chose Ansley to call plays:
“He is ready. He is somebody that has been in the back end with me, not last year, but the two previous years. He has a pretty good idea of when we want to call something and when we want to call it.”
On how David Johnson is handling the coaching shuffle:
“Anytime you get men that are used to running organizations, David was a head coach in high school. When you do that, you have to coach a number of positions. Everyone wants to do what is best for the team and everybody figures out what their role is and does the best at their role. I think David is a guy that is willing to do whatever he needs to help get Tennessee football back where it is supposed to be.”
On adding Jim Chaney to the staff:
“Jim has done it a bunch of different ways. If you track his career, he has thrown it 50 times in a game, he is a guy that has had a lot of balance and has been dominant running the football. He figures out the strengths of his players and tries to find a scheme that fits them. He is tough to defend. He is very multiple. Just being around him, I think he is a great evaluator, he has command in a room, and he sees the big picture. I am excited to see what we do this summer as we move into the spring and then fall.”
On pursuing Chaney:
“I do not think it matters where we start, it is all about where you end up. It is like recruiting; we start recruiting a bunch of them right now but really the only ones that matter are the ones you get. We got him, and that is the most important thing.”
On how much has changed over the last year:
“If you look at us this time last year, there was not a lot of familiarity with the roster. There were very few guys that I had a relationship with, there were very few guys that I even recruited at other stops. We really did not know bunch about what we were getting in each individual player. So when you are doing your OTA’s and you are getting ready for spring practice, you put guys at spots that you think they can be successful. It is very interesting when you go back and watch the first practice last year, where they started out and how they ended up. As far as positions, a lot of them changed positions. One thing that is going to give us a jump start in the second year is we know they players and the guys we recruited. We know how the puzzle is supposed to fit together and our returning guys have an expectation of off season conditioning. To me that is exciting, because the first day of spring ball we will have a chance for guys to be playing positions that they will be playing in the fall. They will get 15 practices in positions that they will play in the fall, and that did not necessarily happen last year. From a player standpoint guys are going to have a chance to improve in a hurry.”
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