KNOXVILLE – During the offseason, Tennessee assistant Brian Niedermeyer changed positions.
He spent the last two seasons overseeing the Vols’ tight end unit and will now coach inside linebackers in 2020.
For Niedermeyer, the move to defense is “a sense of comfort.”
Immediately following his playing days at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Niedermeyer began his coaching career as a defensive graduate assistant in 2012.
He then began to climb up the coaching ladder as he joined the Miami Hurricanes, assisting linebackers coach Michael Barrow in day-to-day operations as a quality control coach.
Then he was hired as wide receivers coach and offensive recruiting coordinator at Division III East Texas Baptist under head coach Joshua Eargle.
Niedermeyer would begin working under then-defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt at Georgia (2015) and Alabama (2016) as a graduate assistant.
Ahead of the 2020 campaign, Niedermeyer met with media to discuss how much more of a natural fit he is coaching linebackers and if it helps that he recruited Henry To’o To’o and Quavaris Crouch.
“I think it’s making a relationship with all of those guys: Aaron Beasley, Solon Page, Jeremy Banks,” Niedermeyer said on a Zoom call with reporters. “It’s key, no matter what position you’re in, to have a good relationship with all of those guys.
“For me, moving back to linebackers was a sense of comfort because I started out there when I first coached in college with Michael Barrow at the University of Miami and moving on through with Coach Pruitt, and then at Georgia and Alabama. It’s been a much easier transition for me than if I was going the other direction.”