Mike Ekeler brought a lot of energy to Tennessee Football and was a fan favorite. His role also wasn’t that valuable. As the outside linebackers coach, Ekeler literally oversaw one position out of 11 on the field. You can replace a guy like that easily.
This shows by the timing of Ekeler’s departure for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. It happened on a Monday after his contract with UT expired the previous Friday. The most likely scenario is that after upping defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ salary, Josh Heupel and the Vols may have decided keeping Ekeler was too expensive.
They should approach his replacement the same way.
Now, Ekeler also was the special teams coordinator, and we can’t dismiss that. However, new kickoff rules and elite punters have rendered special teams coaching a lot less important than it used to be
Those who say special teams is a third of the game literally can’t do math. Last year, Tennessee ran 2,179 plays. Of those, 1,794 were from scrimmage, and the other 385 were special teams plays, which included field goals, field goal coverage, punt returns, punts, kickoff returns, kickoffs, extra points, and extra points.
That adds up to 17.7 percent of the Vols’ plays being on special teams, less than a fifth. Hardly a third.
It goes even deeper, though. There were 98 kickoffs, either by Tennessee or the team kicking off to Tennessee, that went for touchbacks. Eight punts also went that way, so there were 106 touchbacks, or plays in which the special teams coordinator would have ZERO impact.
Once you factor those in, less than 13 percent of UT’s plays were on special teams.
Simply put, it isn’t the job it used to be, so there’s no reason to overpay for somebody to run that portion of the game while also coaching one position. As a result, after increasing Banks’ salary over $500,000, Tennessee needs to try to save money on this hire.
In the age of NIL, that money can go to buying more talent. It shouldn’t be wasted on a coach who can’t have that much of an impact. Wouldn’t you as a Vol fan rather see money spent on an elite outside linebacker who could be an All-American rather than an outside linebacker coach?
Such a move likely means promoting from within, but so be it. This isn’t to dismiss the importance in general of staff members or even off-field analysts. However, in some case, just having the person is more important than the quality, and the quality won’t spur much of a difference
