KNOXVILLE — The window opened back up for Mike DeBord.
It had been a while since it last shut for Tennessee’s new offensive coordinator.
The 59-year-old DeBord became a coordinator at a third different program in a fourth different decade when Butch Jones and the Volunteers tabbed him to replace Mike Bajakian last week, and though he last was a coordinator at Michigan in 2007, DeBord doesn’t expect to face much of an adjustment getting back into college football or overseeing an offense.
“I told the players this, I think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and truly excited,” DeBord said Friday during his first meeting with the media. “I get to do what my passion is, and that is to be a football coach at the college level and to be a coordinator.
“I think there’s different types of coaches. There are people that maybe want to be a head coach, there’s people that maybe only want to be a coordinator, there’s people who want to be position coaches. That’s all great, but my true passion in coaching is to coordinate an offense.