Niedermeyer Shines as Recruiter, Position Coach

By Dom Palumbo, Tennessee Media Relations Graduate Assistant

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee -- College athletics holds a unique place in the American sports landscape. It is one of the few spaces where the athletes get to choose where they want to continue both their academic and athletic careers.

For Tennessee football tight ends coach Brian Niedermeyer, the 2019 National Recruiter of the Year by 247Sports and ESPN, there is the constant challenge of competing with SEC rivals and national powers for the country's best players.

While the challenges exist, Niedermeyer has multiple advantages when it comes to bringing the next great crop of Volunteers to Rocky Top.

"He recruits all the time," Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt said. "He builds relationships with the players that we're recruiting. I think he's very personable. He's real. He's a guy that kind of stays on people and he uses the resources that we have here. I think he does a good job."

At just north of 30, Niedermeyer's age gives him an angle to better relate to the people he wants to bring in to play for the Big Orange each Fall.

"I think being young is always good to be able to relate to people," Niedermeyer said. "More than anything, I think it is about building relationships and identifying with people. I've lived in so many different places it helped me out to understand different people and it has been good for me."

Niedermeyer played college football at three different institutions at both the junior college and NCAA Division I level. He gained coaching experience at five different universities before calling Knoxville home last year.

He grew up in Alaska, made junior college stops in California before wrapping up his undergraduate degree and his football career at Arkansas at Pine Bluff. His coaching career started in Arkansas and took him to stints in Texas, Florida, Georgia and Alabama until he arrived on Rocky Top as one of Pruitt's first hires in December 2017.

He's lived with a host of different people, in different places and has learned about the importance of those differences.

"I think you learn to really adjust and you understand different people's upbringings," Niedermeyer said. "It's really an empowering thing for me. I have really enjoyed going to all of these different places and interacting with all of these different people. Everything is so different, depending on how you grew up and where you grew up. You really understand it is a beautiful thing to be around a lot of different people."

It is this knowledge and this understanding of people that have allowed Niedermeyer to find success on the recruiting trail. However, he has been arguably just as impressive as a position coach with the Vols. Entering his second season as the tight ends coach, guiding his group that is headlined by senior Dominick Wood-Anderson and redshirt juniors Austin Pope and Andrew Craig.

"He's a good coach, too," Pruitt said. "A lot of people don't appreciate how good a coach that he is. He does a really good job. He could coach any side of the ball, (including) defense. That's what he always was for us was a defensive GA (at Georgia and Alabama), but he's a very intelligent guy and it really comes easy to him."

Before Tennessee, Niedermeyer helped coach defenses at Georgia, Alabama and Miami, assisting in the development 28 NFL Draft Picks, 11 of whom were first rounders. He also coached wide receivers at East Texas Baptist University and played tight end in college, making for a well-rounded resume when he arrived on Rocky Top.

"I played some tight end in college and coached receivers at a Division III school," Niedermeyer said. "I feel a lot more comfortable this year going into it. Like I tell anyone, everything is learned from somebody. You learn a lot going through the first year and you do really well going through the second year."

He was key in the growth of Wood-Anderson who finished last season with 17 grabs for 140 yards and two touchdowns.

"His (Niedermeyer's) ability to listen to you and understand where you're coming from make him a great coach to work with," Wood-Anderson said. "He really knows a lot about defense, which helps us to learn the offense. There are times when he can tell us exactly where a defender will be. He's a smart dude, a great recruiter and a great person."

This year, under new offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, where the tight end position is critical, Wood-Anderson is expected to take the next step.

"He definitely fits into our offense well and he is really good for Coach Chaney's plan in the future for using tight ends," Niedermeyer said. "He can protect really well, he can run block well, and he can obviously catch the ball very well."

Niedermeyer's focus this season is on helping lead the Vols back to prominence. He believes in Pruitt's vision. He said it takes little convincing to get others to believe on the recruiting trail because of the upward trajectory of the Vols under the head coach and athletic director.

"It's an easy place to sell," Niedermeyer said. "You talk about the University of Tennessee. You talk about playing for Jeremy Pruitt. You talk about playing offense for Jim Chaney. We have the best Athletic Director in the country in Phillip Fulmer. I believe that. For us, it is not a hard sell. The community, the people and the tradition it is all pretty unreal. It is just saying, 'this is who we are' and finding people who want to be a part of it. Tennessee has always had that power and hopefully we'll get this program back to where it was in the 90's and early 2000's."

University of Tennessee Athletics

Players Mentioned

Andrew Craig

Austin Pope

Dominick Wood-Anderson

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