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Tennessee wasn't in the market for a defensive line coach very
long last month. Head
coach Jeremy Pruitt and the Vols didn't even need an
interview to hire Jimmy Brumbaugh from Colorado.
Brumbaugh is exactly the kind of defensive line coach Pruitt wants, even though
the two have never worked together.
Brumbaugh was tabbed as the replacement for SEC veteran
defensive line coach Tracy Rocker, who went to South
Carolina after his contract at Tennessee expired, and Pruitt after Tennessee's
first spring practice on Tuesday afternoon explained why the Vols simply
offered him the job.
That's because Pruitt knew Brumbaugh was precisely what he wants
in a defensive line coach.
“Jimmy’s a guy that I’ve known for a
long time,” Pruitt said. “When he was playing at Auburn, we played against each
other (when Pruitt played at Alabama). (He’s) a guy that has really grown in
the profession, I mean the work that he’s done at every stop along the way,
he’s a great teacher, motivator. You kind of know what you’re getting in him
every single day.
“You can see it out here (at practice).
When I’ve sat in the meetings with him and just how he teaches, I think he’s
really hands-on. He brings a lot of knowledge at that position, playing that
position, and really is kind of the style of defensive line coach that we’re
looking for.”
Brumbaugh, also
Tennessee's co-defensive coordinator, was a two-time All-SEC defensive lineman
at Auburn and started 44 of his 48 career games with the Tigers (1995-99). After competing his degree following a brief professional
career, he started out his coaching career at Jacksonville State as a student
assistant in 2005, then got his first defensive line coaching job at
Chattanooga in 2005. Brumbaugh then spent two years at LSU as an assistant
strength and conditioning coach and was part of a national title season in
Baton Rouge.
Jimmy Brumbaugh
Since then, Brumbaugh has been the defensive
line coach at Louisiana Tech (2008-09), Syracuse (2010-11), East Mississippi
Community College (2012), Kentucky (2013-16), Maryland (2017-18) and Colorado
(2018). At Kentucky, Brumbaugh worked alongside current Tennessee defensive
coordinator Derrick Ansley and coached a pair of future NFL
players in Za'Darius Smith and Bud Dupree. At Colorado, the Buffaloes' run
defense jumped 64 spots in the national statistical rankings after surrendering
62.4 fewer yards per game in 2019.
Pruitt is the latest SEC-defensive-coordinator-turned-head-coach
to hire Brumbaugh to his staff, joining Mark Stoops at
Kentucky, D.J. Durkin at Maryland and Mel Tucker at Colorado.
“When we had the job come
open, we didn’t interview anybody else,” Pruitt said. “We didn’t interview him.
We just offered him the job and he came.”
Brumbaugh is one of the three new defensive assistant coaches
for the Vols in 2020 with Brian Niedermeyer shifting
over to coach the inside linebackers after two seasons as Tennessee's tight
ends coach and Shelton Felton, a former quality
control analyst at Tennessee in 2018, coming in from Akron to coach the outside
linebackers.
Tennessee resumes the spring with its second practice on
Thursday afternoon.
