Former Tennessee Assistant Brian Niedermeyer Takes Shot at Vols’ Recruiting

Former Tennessee assistant coach Brian Niedermeyer, who was fired with cause in 2021 for recruiting violations at Tennessee, was trolling the Volunteers after a prominent recruit chose Ohio State over Tennessee on Monday.

On Monday afternoon, five-star wide receiver Carnell Tate announced his commitment to Ohio State with a video on social media. The common knowledge around the situation was that Tate was deciding between Tennessee and Ohio State. So when Tate posted the commitment video to Twitter on Monday, Niedermeyer couldn’t help but say something.

“You love to see it,” Niedermeyer wrote on Twitter above the video, implying that he took joy in the fact that Carnell Tate would not be taking his talents to Tennessee.

Carnell Tate is a wide receiver at IMG Academy in Florida, where Niedermeyer recently took the defensive coordinator job in May.

Niedermayer’s tweet has prompted 221 responses and 99 quote tweet responses on Twitter, totaling more than 300 replies.

https://twitter.com/BMNiedermeyer/status/1538938817318735872?s=20&t=DubK7ykoDjWKnojpwa7VIw

See Also from RTI: Where Tennessee Stands in Latest Football Recruiting Rankings

Although this won’t be a lasting storyline throughout the summer, Niedermeyer could say that he was just excited for one of his IMG players and that he would have been excited wherever Tate went. While that may be true, it’s hard to believe that Niedermeyer wasn’t also intentionally trolling his former program and its fans on Twitter.

For a good portion of his career, Niedermeyer was tied at the hip to Jeremy Pruitt. When Pruitt was hired as the Tennessee head coach in 2017, he brought Niedermeyer along with him to be the Vols’ tight ends coach after serving as Alabama’s Assistant Director of Recruiting Operations.

Niedermeyer was Tennessee’s tight ends coach for two seasons before shifting over to inside linebackers coach in 2019. In addition, Niedermeyer also had a big hand in recruiting for Tennessee, which came to light in the early stages of the investigation surrounding Pruitt’s administration. In January of 2021, Niedermeyer, along with Jeremy Pruitt, Shelton Felton, and a number of other personnel were fired with cause after recruiting violations were found within the Tennessee program.

After he was fired from Tennessee, Niedermeyer went to work at St. Thomas Aquinas prep academy in Florida in a variety of different coaching roles. On May 4, however, Niedermeyer was announced as IMG Academy’s defensive coordinator heading into the 2022 season.

Carnell Tate isn’t the only Tennessee target that is under the wing of Brian Niedermeyer at IMG Academy, though. With Tate now an Ohio State commit, Tennessee will turn its attention to four-star IMG Academy wide receiver Devin Hyatt, who is the brother of current Vol Jalin Hyatt. In addition, Tennessee is also heavily targeting five-star offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa, who is also an IMG Academy player.

While this very well could be unrelated, Niedermeyer may have also been trolling Tennessee Baseball last week as well. Tennessee Baseball’s season ended on Sunday, June 12, around 4:00 p.m. when they lost to Notre Dame in Knoxville. Within the same hour that Tennessee had lost, Niedermeyer sent out a cryptic tweet with a smirking sunglasses emoji that could potentially be referring to the Vols’ season-ender. If Niedermeyer was taking a shot at Tennessee Baseball, he wasn’t the only one, either.

https://twitter.com/BMNiedermeyer/status/1536085766299844608?s=20&t=vm9I7qQC5236YfrnufWtZw