Tennessee promotes Osovet, moves Niedermeyer to defense

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has shuffled its coaching staff by promoting Joe Osovet to tight ends coach and moving Brian Niedermeyer from offense to defense.

Volunteers coach Jeremy Pruitt announced the changes Wednesday.

Osovet had joined Tennessee’s staff in 2018 by filling an off-field role in player development, and he took over as director of football programming last year. In his new position, Osovet has a two-year contract paying him $225,000 this year and $250,000 next year.

Niedermeyer had been Tennessee’s tight ends coach the last two seasons and was named the national recruiter of the year by 247Sports and ESPN in 2019. Niedermeyer now will coach inside linebackers instead as he replaces Kevin Sherrer, who left to coach the New York Giants’ inside linebackers.

Before coming to Tennessee, Osovet posted a 33-11 record as a junior-college head coach at ASA (New York) College and Nassau (New York) Community College.

“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,” Pruitt said in a statement. “He’s ready to be an on-field coach and eager to get to work.’’

Niedermeyer worked with Pruitt as a graduate assistant at Georgia (2015) and Alabama (2016) before becoming the Crimson Tide’s assistant director of recruiting operations in 2017.

“Like a lot of the guys on our staff, Brian could coach any position – offense or defense,” Pruitt said. “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.”