A former Tennessee Vols assistant coach reportedly landed a new head coaching job in college football on Friday.
According to 247Sports’ Matt Zenitz, Jacksonville State is expected to hire Auburn Tigers co-defensive coordinator Charles Kelly as the program’s new head coach.
Kelly served as Tennessee’s special teams coordinator/safeties coach in 2018 under then UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt. Kelly left Tennessee after one season on Rocky Top to join Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama.
The former Vols assistant was also on Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado for one season (2023). Kelly previously served as an assistant coach at Jacksonville State from 1994 to 1998.
Jacksonville State was in the market for a new coach with Rich Rodriguez returning to West Virginia to take over as the head coach in Morgantown.
Kelly, who played college football at Auburn, was long gone from Knoxville by the time that Josh Heupel and his staff were hired at Tennessee in early 2021. Kelly, however, has a unique connection to current Vols defensive line coach Rodney Garner.