Florida State Seminoles name Charles Kelly Defensive Coordinator
Jeremy Pruitt, who helped lead the Florida State Seminoles to a national title, surprisingly left his position as the Seminoles’ defensive coordinator to take the same job with the Georgia Bulldogs last week.
Of course, after the Seminoles lost six assistants following the 2012 season and still managed to complete a perfect season in 2013, there was no need to panic.
Head coach Jimbo Fisher had two veteran candidates on his own staff in linebackers’ coach Charles Kelly and defensive ends’ coach Sal Sunseri, but didn’t rush to hand either the job. Instead he did his due diligence and on Wednesday, decided that Kelly would be be the best fit to take over for Pruitt.
The hiring was first reported by Noles 24/7.
Fisher hired Kelly as Florida State’s linebackers’ and special teams’ coach last year after parting ways with Greg Hudson, who became the Purdue Boilermaker’s defensive coordinator. Kelly spent the seven years prior as a cornerbacks and secondary coach with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. He became Georgia Tech’s interim defensive coordinator halfway through 2012 and the team showed great improvement.
Kelly will likely shift from linebackers and be named the secondary coach, like Florida State’s last two coordinators, Pruitt and current Kentucky Wildcats’ head coach Mark Stoops.
The Seminoles also made Sunseri associate head coach. The Seminoles will now likely look for a linebackers’ coach to replace Kelly. They do have the option of having Sunseri coach the linebackers (he held that title while with the Alabama Crimson Tide), but they’d probably prefer to have him continue to work with the ends.