Artis heading to South Florida

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel has an opening on his strength and conditioning staff. A.J. Artis is leaving for South Florida to become the football director of strength and conditioning.

Artis told the football team Monday afternoon of his departure.

Artis was named the head strength coach by former head coach Jeremy Pruitt last May after Craig Fitzgerald left for the New York Giants.

Artis was retaining by Heupel when he was hired in January, but Heupel also brought Central Florida head strength coach Kurt Schmidt with him to oversee the strength program. Heupel hired Schmidt to be his head strength guy at UCF after the two worked together at Missouri.

Artis was on a two year contract at Tennessee making $200,000 a year a deal that ran through May of 2022. Artis will owe Tennessee 33% of his base pay (roughly $250,000) for terminating his contract early.

Schmidt will be Tennessee’s fourth new head strength coach in the last five years.