KNOXVILLE – According to multiple reports, Tennessee offensive coordinator Tyson Helton has reached an agreement to become Western Kentucky’s next head coach.
WKU fired Mike Sanford after a 3-9 record in 2018. Sanford was 9-16 in two seasons at the school, including a 27-17 loss to Georgia State in the 2017 Autonation Cure Bowl.
Helton was the Hilltoppers’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2014 and 2015, and the offense averaged 373.2 passing yards and 530.4 total yards per game in that span.
A report from FootballScoop.com surfaced late Saturday evening that Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt was looking to move on from Helton after the Volunteers lost 38-13 to Vanderbilt and finished the regular season 5-7, short of bowl eligibility. Pruitt was hired by Tennessee last December and brought Helton – the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator at Southern California in 2016 and 2017 – on board for his first staff.
The Tennessee offense struggled with inconsistency, injuries and lack of production from the line and ranked at or near the bottom of all offensive categories this season in the 14-team Southeastern Conference. The Vols had per-game averages of 325.5 offensive yards (last), 129.1 rushing yards (last), 22.8 points (13th) and 196.42 passing yards (11th).
In nine games against Power Five competition, the Vols averaged 19.6 points and never scored more than the 30 points they put up in a six-point upset of then 21st-ranked Auburn.
Tennessee ranked 121st out of 129 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in yards per game, and next-to-last out of the Power Five programs, with only Rutgers’ offense (266.3) averaging fewer. That followed a 2017 season in which Tennessee ranked 117th in the country in total offense.
The rushing attack failed to reach 150 yards eight times in 2018, including seven of the final eight games. The lone exception was a 215-yard showing against Kentucky on Nov. 10.
Helton received much of the blame, as his play-calling was called into question on multiple occasions. After the Nov. 17 blowout loss to Missouri, Pruitt appeared to express some level of frustration in the play-calling.
“When they have more in there than we can block, we don’t need to be running the ball in there, which we did multiple times tonight,” Pruitt said then. “We have to have ways that we can spin the ball out on the perimeter, whether it’s bubbles, slants, glance, stabs, whatever you want to call it. We didn’t take advantage of that all of the time. When you have six to block seven and you hand the ball off in there some days, your six guys can get on the other six guys and win or tie or whatever you want to call it, and maybe you’re not good enough to beat the extra guy.
“Sometimes maybe you are, but we weren’t today.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.