University of Tennessee tight end Brendan Downs (85) misses a pass during practice, while tight ends coach/special teams coordinator Mark Elder watches, at Haslam Field on Friday.KNOXVILLE - One job is typically plenty for a college football coach.
So you could imagine how taxing the past 11 days have been for Mark Elder.
Tennessee's tight ends coach and special teams coordinator was hired by Eastern Kentucky as its head coach earlier this month, and he's been bouncing back and forth between helping the Volunteers prepare for the Outback Bowl and getting the foundation laid in Richmond.
"As I say, I'm working as a football coach here at Tennessee during the day and moonlighting as the head coach at Eastern Kentucky at night," Elder said Saturday afternoon following Tennessee's practice.
"Coach (Butch) Jones was great about letting me get a couple days of recruiting there. I focused early in the week on things here, then got a couple of days out on the road, because at the FCS level the last week was still a contact period.
"I got to have a couple days there of contacts and getting out to some of the high schools in Kentucky and trying to get everything going there for a couple of days. It's been playing both roles, really."
During his nine years with Jones, the 38-year-old Elder saw him take over programs at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee, and that experience will help him as he takes his first head-coaching job.
TENNESSEE TIDBITS
After one final practice today, players will be able to spend a couple of days with their families at home for Christmas. The Vols will practice on Christmas evening and fly to Tampa on the 26th. The team's first bowl-site practice is the following day.> Receiver Josh Smith and Jashon Robertson were both present at practice, but freshman offensive lineman Venzell Boulware continues to sit out with an ankle injury.> Two injured receivers, Jason Croom and Vincent Perry, were back on the field in some capacity on Saturday.Croom was running routes during individual periods and even lined up as a tight end a few times, and Jones expects him to be back for spring practice.Perry did his work on the side of practice.> The Vols won't have any players academically ineligble for the bowl, Jones said. Tennessee announced on Friday that the football team posted a semester grade-point average of 2.68, the highest mark on record for a fall semester. The team's cumulative GPA is 2.77.
Jones is proud of his longtime assistant coach getting his chance to run his own program.
"He's down to 20 text messages to return over 400 some-odd text messages," Jones said. "It all comes at you at once, and you have to be very detailed. But I told him to enjoy this. This opportunity doesn't come around very often, and sometimes you've got to sit back and you have to actually enjoy it.
"You're trying to juggle so many things, and I really think it's a tribute to him, because he's been able to manage being the head football coach at Eastern Kentucky and still being the tight ends coach at Tennessee."
While working for Jones, Elder coached linebackers, tight ends, running backs, safeties and special teams. Though he coached tight ends for the Vols, his background is on defense. Elder handled defensive backs, linebackers and coordinator duties during his stops at Akron, Lehigh, Iona and Wayne State.
Going from special teams coordinator to head coach seems like an unusual jump, but it's been done before.
John Bonamego was the special teams coordinator for the NFL's Detroit Lions when Central Michigan hired him as head coach last offseason, and John Harbaugh handled special teams and defensive backs for the Philadelphia Eagles when the Baltimore Ravens hired him as the head man.
"Obviously we're very proud of him and everything he's done for this program and what he's going to do that new program he's going to head into after the bowl game," cornerback and punt returner Cameron Sutton said Tuesday.
"It's just another week for him. It's still the same game plan, still coaching, still in guys' ears with the same intensity that he's had throughout the season. We're dearly going to miss him, but we hope the best for him."
Elder said he'll take some lessons he's learned from Jones over the years with him to his new job.
"There's a ton of things obviously," he said. "We could talk about that for a long period of time. I think that his detail, his attention to detail is outstanding, and the passion for the game and how that bleeds into the players - those are obviously two just general things that I've really learned about with him. Those aren't specific, but attention to detail is with everything.
"He has unbelievable attention to detail, and I've really learned some of those things that maybe I would have overlooked 10 years ago that really are extremely important."
The hardest part of the transition for Elder was informing the tight ends he was leaving.
"There's a great group in there, the most selfless group I've ever been around," he said. "I've got relationships with those guys off the field. The one positive is that I think we will continue to have relationships off the field. The disappointing part is I won't be a part of their lives on a day-in, day-out basis. That was extremely difficult."
On the recruiting trail, Elder was a valuable asset for Tennessee in North Carolina and in Memphis.
On the field, Elder helped the Vols improve drastically on special teams, and the kickoff return unit for which he was directly responsible accounted for half of the program-record six return touchdowns the Vols had this season.
"I've worked as hard as I can for three years to do everything I can to help Tennessee football," Elder said, "I certainly hope that that contribution is leaving this place better than where it started."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.