Super Bowl? Tell me about it later. This is Tennessee football time in Tennessee.
Sometime soon, later today or whenever a make-or-break defensive coordinator finally takes the bait, Dr. Danny White will again welcome the spotlight and officially announce coach Josh Heupel’s new staff of assistants.
Danny White
The athletics director doesn’t want any help. No sneak previews. Leaks are prohibited. He wants control of sports information, as in when and what you know about the Volunteers.
This technique is taught in what used to be journalism schools. It is called public relations. It is image enhancement, how newsmakers put their best foot forward and, sometimes, a positive spin on train wrecks and other disasters.
This being Knoxville, the concept doesn’t always work. News of White’s employment spilled out prematurely. Danny’s decision to circle back to Central Florida to hire Heupel was public knowledge before White wanted it to be. He didn’t like that one bit. He said as much.
I wasn’t the villain. Not me. I was too slow. Brent Hubbs did it.
Brent is a multi-talented professional. He is an important part of the Vol Network football crew. He adds substance to TV shows. He also operates a subscription website that distributes news and commentary about Tennessee sports. He has (or had) inside connections.
Hubbs will undoubtedly try to avoid controversy but he’ll probably continue doing what he does. Surely White will be too busy with bigger things to watch every media interaction.
As for me, I am today trying to play by the rules, within the sharp edges of managed news. What follows is absolutely, totally unofficial. No leaks were involved. All information was pulled from thin air. Credit my new hearing aids.
Glen Elarbee
For openers, I am convinced that Glen Elarbee, 40, has been the new offensive line coach of the Volunteers for several days.
He’s been a lot of places on his way here but he has secure roots. He is from Carrollton, Ga. He was the starting center for two seasons at Middle Tennessee State. One of the Blue Raider coaches, not the great Boots Donnelly, once told me how smart Glen was, how he knew all the assignments for all the offensive linemen. Better than that, he had a record 15 knockdown blocks against Vanderbilt.
Athletics director White may tell you, sometime later, that Elarbee had three “pet” piranhas while in school.
In early September 2002, on the day before MTSU’s big game at Tennessee, Glen sliced his hand while cutting other raw meat to feed his fish. The good news was it was his left hand. He applied medication, taped it up and didn’t miss a snap.
I may not get his coaching career in chronological order but, as I said earlier, this is undocumented information, not yet massaged, sworn and notarized.
Elarbee was a graduate assistant at his alma mater. He was a grad assistant for Les Miles when LSU won a national championship. He moved to Oklahoma State. He became offensive coordinator and line coach at West Georgia.
He returned to MTSU and left a significant mark, second fewest sacks in the country. He was at Houston for a year and Arkansas State for two. The next year, he linked up with Heupel at Missouri. Since then, he has moved only in concert with Josh.
Elarbee once explained his switch from constant migration to stability.
“Coach Heupel is probably the rarest combination I’ve been around, a guy that really cares about players, coaches, people as individuals, and is unreal smart intellectually – X’s and O’s, vision, structure, knows what he wants.”
How does he do it?
“Attention to detail. Everything we do has such a fine point to each piece of coaching. It all ties together. There’s not anything that we do that doesn’t have a reason for why we’re doing it. … It all has purpose. …”
Whenever cometh the formal announcement hour, look and listen for Alex Golesh, Joey Halzle and Kodi Burns as new employees of Tennessee athletics.
Best I can tell, Golesh is the only Vol assistant coach born in Moscow, Russia. Halzle is another former Oklahoma quarterback, as was Heupel. Burns played at Auburn and had the unique experience of catching a touchdown pass from Cam Newton and throwing a touchdown pass to Cam Newton.
There is a long list of others. Brandon Lawson, Angelia Brummett, Kurt Schmidt and Jake Breske may be second-day announcements.
Lawson, South-Doyle graduate, put in six years in the military. He led the Marine One Black Hawk helicopter squadron assigned to President George W. Bush. He earned a UT degree in logistics. He was a key man on Heupel’s support staff at Central Florida.
Brummett, another UT grad, helped in football recruiting while a student. She became director of campus recruiting at Central Florida. Southern Cal persuaded her to come to Los Angeles. She had a short career there, two weeks. When Heupel got the Tennessee job, she headed home – but don’t tell anybody. Angelia has not been officially confirmed.
Just guessing, but Schmidt might be director of competition development, whatever that is.
Breske worked in Missouri recruiting when Heupel was there. Among football people, Jake has a somewhat unusual background – an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s in kinesiology and sports science from the University of South Dakota.
Hmmm, Heupel is from South Dakota.
Kelsey Pope, Gardner-Webb’s passing game coordinator, is coming to Tennessee as … enough already.
I have other names but I don’t want to do or say anything that might distract from official announcements.
Marvin West welcomes reader comments or questions. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com