Tennessee wide receivers coach Kodi Burns has joined the New Orleans Saints’ coaching staff in the same capacity.
Second-year Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel will look to fill Burns’ vacancy on his staff.
On Wednesday, a topic of discussion Vols Wire had on Fox Sports Knoxville’s “The Drive,” was coaches who could be viable options on Heupel’s staff in filling Burns’ vacancy.
Full list of coaches that could be ideal in filling the vacancy on Josh Heupel’s staff
Below were topics of discussion if Heupel were to hire or promote a wide receivers coach.
Another option would be to move running backs coach Jerry Mack to overseeing wide receivers. Mack played wide receiver at Jackson State. He coached wide receivers at Jackson State, Central Arkansas, Memphis and South Alabama.
Hire Gardner-Webb head coach Tre Lamb as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach.
Lamb runs a similar offense and he hired Kelsey Pope as Gardner-Webb’s passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach.
Heupel hired Pope as an offensive analyst after arriving at Tennessee.
Lamb has a career trajectory similar to South Carolina offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield of being an FCS head coach.
Promote Kelsey Pope from offensive analyst to wide receivers coach.Pope played wide receiver collegiately at Samford from 2010-13.
Cooper is an offensive analyst at Oklahoma in a similar offense under Jeff Lebby.
He played for Heupel at Oklahoma. Cooper served as graduate assistant from 2013-14 alongside Heupel with the Sooners.
Cooper followed Heupel to Utah State as a graduate assistant (2015), offensive analyst at Missouri (2016-17) and tight ends coach at UCF (2018-19).
Montario Hardesty is in his second season as South Carolina’s running backs coach under offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield.
He served on staff in 2017 at FAU under Kiffin and offensive coordinator Kendal Briles.
Hardesty played running back for the Vols from 2005-09.
Thornton is in his second year as Ole Miss’ offensive line coach and familiar with Heupel’s offense.
Thornton was running game coordinator at Gardner-Webb and Tennessee Tech with Tre Lamb and Kelsey Pope.
Tucker is in his second season as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Utah State.
He coached under Heupel as co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach in 2020, passing game coordinator and running backs coach in 2019 and running backs coach during the 2018 campaign at UCF.
He coached alongside current Vols’ offensive line coach Glen Elarbee at Arkansas State from 2013-15.
