Tennessee Officially Announces Two Staff Changes

It’s official: Tennessee has promoted within and will fill another vacancy on staff by switching roles.

After David Johnson left the Vols’ staff to be the next running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at Florida State and Kevin Sherrer left UT to make the jump to the NFL on the New York Giants’ staff, head coach Jeremy Pruitt had a couple vacancies to fill. Pruitt hired former Vol running back and Texas A&M’s running backs coach/co-offensive coordinator Jay Graham to be UT’s next RBs coach. Now, the other vacancy has been filled thanks to a little shuffling on the staff.

Tennessee officially announced the promotion of Joe Osovet to an on-field role as the Vols’ tight ends coach on Wednesday. Former tight ends coach, Brian Niedermeyer, will move over to the defensive side of the ball and will coach UT’s inside linebackers.

Pruitt brought Osovet on to his staff in an off-field role prior to the 2018 season, and he was promoted to Tennessee’s Director of Programming for Football last offseason. Now, the esteemed offensive analyst will be a position coach for the first time at the FBS level.

“I’m excited to announce Joe Osovet as our new tight ends coach,” Jeremy Pruitt said via a release. “Joe’s track record as an outstanding college coach and a top offensive mind speaks for itself. He’s been successful at every stop he has been, and he’s done a tremendous job behind the scenes here at Tennessee over the last two years. He’s ready to be an on-field coach and eager to get to work. He’s an excellent relationship builder and I believe he will do a great job in our tight end room.”

Before joining the Vols, Osovet was a head coach at the junior college level. Osovet was named the 2014 USA Sports Writers JUCO Coach of the Year for his work at Nassau Community College.

He served as the interim head coach for Nassau Community College in 2013 before taking on the full-time role in 2014. He left there to become the head coach at ASA College in New York in 2016.

Osovet’s offenses in the JUCO ranks made him a hot name in the coaching world. He’s viewed as an innovator in the RPO offense that is so prevalent in college football now.

The offenses that Osovet ran as the head coach of Nassau and ASA were dynamic and high-scoring. His offense at Nassau in 2014 averaged 35.3 points per game and upped that to 45.1 points per contest in 2015. His offense averaged 34.4 points a game at ASA College in 2016 and upped that to 41.9 points per game in 2017.

Osovet has been critical in the Vols’ ability to snag junior college players in the last few recruiting cycles. Tennessee landed signatures from JUCO players such as Dominick Wood-Anderson, Jahmir Johnson, Jordan Allen, and Kenneth George Jr. in the 2018 class and signed Savion Williams and Darel Middleton in the 2019 class. He has relationships with several other recruits the Vols have signed and are currently pursuing.

As for Niedermeyer, moving to the defensive side of the ball seems like a more natural fit given his track record.

Niedermeyer played tight end in college, but he’s primarily coached on the defensive side of the ball in his coaching career. At Arkansas Pine Bluff in 2012, Niedermeyer was a student assistant on the defensive side of the ball. At Miami in 2013, he assisted with the linebackers as a volunteer analyst. In 2015, he worked as a defensive graduate assistant and worked primarily with linebackers under Jeremy Pruitt when he was the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator. Pruitt brought Niedermeyer with him to Alabama when he was hired as the Tide’s DC, and Niedermeyer was the director of recruiting operations and was a defensive graduate assistant who specialized in coaching linebackers.

The only place Niedermeyer had coached on the offensive side of the ball prior to getting an on-field role at Tennessee was in 2014 at East Texas Baptist University. There, Niedermeyer coached wide receivers at the Division III level.

Pruitt believes in Niedermeyer’s ability to coach on either side of the ball, and he’s more than comfortable moving the young coach over to defense.

“When I first got hired at Tennessee I knew Brian was a guy that was going to be a coach on my first staff,” Pruitt said. “I didn’t know what position he was going to coach, but I knew he was a rising star in the profession and a guy that knows ball. Like a lot of the guys on our staff, Brian could coach any position – offense or defense. He started out working with linebackers for me as a graduate assistant at Georgia and did the same for me at Alabama. He’s a great motivator and a very detail-oriented, fundamental coach.”

Niedermeyer has been an ace recruiter for the Vols since Pruitt brought him on as a coach in 2018. He was named the 247Sports Recruiter of the Year for the 2019 recruiting cycle, and Niedermeyer is typically who UT places on their top four and five-star targets. He was key in the Vols landing five-star offensive tackle Darnell Wright, four-star linebacker Henry To’o To’o, four-star linebacker Quavaris Crouch, four-star cornerback Tyus Fields, four-star tight end Jackson Lowe, and three-star tight end Sean Brown in the 2019 class.

As UT’s tight ends coach last year, Niedermeyer earned $355,000 according to the USA Today Sports salary database. Joe Osovet’s salary is not readily available.