ATLANTA - The rumor mill swirled on the Arkansas campus as Chad Morris turned his attention to hiring a defensive coordinator in December after landing the Razorbacks' head coaching job.
Morris, a newcomer to the Southeastern Conference, knew whom he wanted. Morris said at SEC Media Days on Tuesday that his first call was to John Chavis, the former longtime Tennessee defensive coordinator who made more recent stops at LSU and Texas A&M.
"I needed someone with that experience," said Morris, an offensive mind coming off three years as the Southern Methodist head coach.
The Razorbacks' players were not as convinced.
"The first meeting I had with Coach Chavis, I really didn't know what to expect, because I heard a lot of different things about Chavis," Arkansas senior linebacker Dre Greenlaw said Tuesday. "I heard that he's a grumpy old man. I heard that he was this and that."
Upon meeting Chavis, 61, Greenlaw soon realized why Morris sought the man known to many Tennessee fans as "Chief" so intently.
"When you finally meet Chavis and you really get to know Chavis, there's a reason why he is where he is, because he's a players' coach," Greenlaw said. "The players love him, and he has a passion for the game. When you have that much of a passion, players are going to want to play for you. Luckily, he's been at a lot of great spots and coached a lot of great people who have put him to another level as far as how everybody views him."
Chavis, who played at Tennessee in the 1970s, was the Vols' defensive coordinator under Phillip Fulmer from 1995 to 2008. He was one of three figures from that era of Tennessee football to draw recognition from head coaches on the SEC Media Days' main stage Tuesday.
Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke reflected fondly on his two seasons spent coaching the offensive line and tight ends in Knoxville under Fulmer and then-offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe in 2006 and 2007, even referring to Fulmer as a "sounding board."
"I feel like I've been preparing for this job for a long, long time and been around a lot of really good head coaches in my 18 years involved in this conference," Luke said. "I know what it takes to have a good team in this league. So what I did was I just kind of leaned on, took some of the good stuff from all of the good head coaches I've been around, from Coach Fulmer, David Cutcliffe. I was under Ed Orgeron and some the recruiting stuff he did."
For Morris, a longtime high school coach in eastern Texas who broke into the college game as Tulsa's offensive coordinator in 2010 before spending four seasons as the offensive coordinator at Clemson, landing a defensive coordinator with Chavis' pedigree was critical.
Even if the players didn't know exactly what to expect.
"This is a guy that he's rejuvenated, he's excited," Morris said "He's bouncing around. Our players have really taken ahold to him and his knowledge. And why wouldn't they when they've got a guy that's been in the league as long as he has?"
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.