In lieu of Brian Jean-Mary as UT’s new linebackers coach, the Vols appoint William Inge, a former Washington co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
William Inge, who formerly worked at Washington as an assistant coach under incoming Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, was hired by UT as the linebackers coach yesterday, according to Austin Price of On3’s Volquest. It was reported that Inge and Deboer were on their way to Tuscaloosa to teach outside linebackers, but for whatever reason, the agreement appeared to fall through.
After offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb accepted a similar position with the Seattle Seahawks a few days ago, Inge became the second coach in as many weeks to decide against serving under DeBoer at Alabama. Three coaches have departed DeBoer’s staff since his hiring on January 12th: Scott Huff, the former offensive line coach for Washington and the current offensive line coach for Alabama, also left with Grubb. Unless the city in question is Tuscaloosa, Alabama, nobody wants to see it burn. DeBoer appears to have brought the tinder from Seattle, so bring some accelerant.
The fifty-year-old Inge is a native of Missouri and has coached at many different levels during his career. After his playing career ended in 1998, he began working as a graduate assistant and recruiting coordinator at Iowa (four years at Iowa and one year with the Titans as a DE).
After two seasons with the Hawkeyes, he spent the next three with Northern Iowa, where he played his last season as a co-DC. He worked as a coach at five different places between 2006 and 2015, including a year spent as Buffalo’s DC and another year as the Bills’ assistant defensive line coach.
His longest stay at any one school was at Indiana, from 2013-2019, where it appears he worked his way down the coaching chain instead of up. He was hired as co-DC and LB coach and held that spot for two years. After that, he spent one year each as LB coach and special teams coach, then a year just coaching LBs and finally a season as just the special teams coach.
He began coaching with DeBoer during his final season at Indiana, when DeBoer was the OC and QB coach, while Inge was as the STs coach. Inge stayed with DeBoer through a stint at Fresno State and went with DeBoer when he tooka the Huskies’ HC job in October of 2021. At Washington, Inge was promoted to associate head coach, co-DC and LBs coach.
In 2010 at Buffalo, his second season as a co-DC, but the first season I could find team stats available for, the defense finished 79th nationally in points allowed per-game, giving up 30.4 but finishing the season strong by allowing just 21 points in the team’s final three games. That 30.4 points allowed was a five-point increase from the previous year when Buffalo finished 56th in the NCAA in scoring defense.
In 2013, Inge’s first season as Indiana’s co-DC, the Hoosiers finished 113th in scoring defense, giving up nearly 40 points a contest. The team improved to 108th nationally the following season, with the points allowed down to just below 35. 2015 was Inge’s final season as co-DC, and Indiana stayed steadily not very good. It finished 106th in the NCAA in points allowed, surrendering nearly 37 a game.
At his first stop with DeBoer in 2020, Inge’s defense allowed 30 points per-game and finished the year ranked 66th nationally — one spot above Tennessee. The next year, State improved drastically, finishing 20th in the FBS and allowing just 21 points per-game for the year but just 14 for the final three games of the season.
While at Washington, the defense finished 65th (27.5 PPG) and 54th (24.8 PPG).
Now, I know opponents’ points per-game isn’t the end-all, be-all of evaluating defenses, and Inge isn’t here to be the defensive coordinator, so he really shouldn’t be judged by how the defenses he coached performed. As a LB coach, tackles for loss are probably a better indicator, but those are harder to find in an aggregate sense.
As a recruiter, 247Sports has him as the primary or secondary recruiter for 33 recruits rated as 3-stars or higher. Being born and spending much of his career in the Midwest, he’s naturally signed several players from that area. But he’s dipped into Florida and Georgia, too, along with two of the top-five rated players he’s signed coming from California.
It remains to be seen how Inge will perform at Tennessee, but it’s a good sign that Heupel and Banks looked outside of what one might consider the typical “boxes,” to make this hire. With both coaches hired yesterday, Inge and RB coach De’Rail Sims, I don’t worry so much about their coaching acumen as I do whether or not their recruiting will translate to the SEC. I’d imagine we had similar concerns about Jerry Mack when he was hired, too.
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