When Tennessee football went to Norman last season to play Oklahoma, the Sooners’ offensive coordinator was Seth Littrell. Despite it being his first year on the job, Littrell didn’t last, though. Instead, he was fired by head coach Brent Venables after just seven games, who he would later replace with Washington State offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle.
Littrell, now on the market for a new job, made the move to Knoxville to join Josh Heupel’s Tennessee staff as a senior offensive analyst. Littrell and Heupel go way back, both playing on the national title team at OU in 2000.
While there are plenty of changes year-to-year in a team’s scheme, especially when a coordinator move is made, it can certainly be helpful to have someone who was in the program as recently as a year ago. He may have some insight into what the defense is looking to do, as well.
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On Tuesday, Venables was asked about what the dynamic of coaching against Littrell would look like.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’ll be any kind of dynamic between Seth and I,” Venables said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, but he’s doing a great job, obviously, being a part of the offensive staff and the success that they’ve had this year. But it’s never about two people. This is a players’ game and not a coaches’ game. But he’s doing great. He landed right on his feet.”
Littrell began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Kansas before heading to Texas Tech as a running backs coach. Then, he coached running backs and tight ends at Arizona for one year, before adding on co-offensive coordinator, then the sole offensive coordinator duties for the Wildcats.
In 2012, Littrell went to Indiana to be the offensive coordinator before hopping to North Carolina to serve as associate head coach and offensive coordinator. From there, he got his first head coaching job at North Texas, where he went 44-44 from 2016-22. After being fired, he joined the Sooners as an offensive analyst before getting the offensive coordinator gig.
