Jeff Grimes

Jeff Grimes (born September 23, 1968 in Garland, Texas) is an American college football assistant coach who has been the offensive coordinator at Brigham Young University (BYU) since December 2017.^[1] Prior to joining the BYU staff in 2017, he served at Louisiana State University (LSU) from 2014 to 2017 as offensive line coach and run game coordinator, offensive line coach at Virginia Tech in 2013, and a similar position at Auburn University from 2009 through the 2012 season. Before coaching at Auburn, he was the assistant head coach, running game coordinator and offensive line coach at the University of Colorado. Grimes also coached the offensive line at BYU, Arizona State University (ASU) and Boise State University (BSU).

Personal life

Grimes graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in education, and earned a master's degree in education administration from Texas A&M in 1997, while serving as a graduate assistant. He is married to former Aggies volleyball player Sheri Hermesmeyer-Grimes and they are the parents of four children.

Playing career

Grimes earned four letters as an offensive tackle for the UTEP Miners between 1987 and 1990. He was coached by Marty Mornhinweg {QB coach), Dave Toub (strength coach), Andy Reid offensive line coach) and Dirk Koetter (offensive coordinator). Grimes was not drafted into the National Football League (NFL), but had a brief professional career, participating in training camp with both the Los Angeles Raiders and the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football.

Coaching career

Grimes entered into coaching in 1993 as a high school coach at Riverside High School in El Paso. After two years as the offensive coordinator and line coach there, he decided to make the move to the college ranks and started working as a graduate assistant under Ken Hatfield at Rice in 1995. He spent the next two seasons in the same position under R. C. Slocum at Texas A&M, while serving under line coach Mike Sherman, before receiving his first full-time college position in 1998, serving as offensive line coach at Hardin–Simmons, under Jimmie Keeling. The Cowboys were 21-2 during his tenure, averaged 39.4 points per game and reached the national semifinals in 1999.

Grimes was hired to join his college coach, Koetter, at BSUe for the 2000 season, working alongside Dan Hawkins. In his one season at BSU, Grimes’ offensive line helped the Broncos lead the nation in scoring offense and accumulate 175 rushing yards per game. When Koetter was hired as the new head coach at ASU after the season, Grimes also left the Broncos to join the Sun Devils, serving as offensive line coach and running game coordinator. Grimes had great success at ASU, with four of the 2001 seniors drafted into the NFL (just the second time that had been done at any school since the NFL adopted the seven-round draft format in 1993). He helped orchestrate a solid rushing attack, tutoring Loren Wade to break the ASU freshman rushing record while leading the Pac-10 in yards per carry.

After spending 3 years with the Sun Devils, Grimes was offered the job coaching the offensive line at BYU by Gary Crowton. After Crowton resigned following the 2004 season, newly promoted head coach Bronco Mendenhall decided to keep Grimes on his staff. His 2006 BYU linemen blocked for the nation's fourth best offense, averaging over 465 yards per game including 141.9 on the ground, and were a large part of the Cougars winning the MWC Championship. BYU finished 11–2 and ranked 15th in the Coaches' Poll.

Hawkins]] lured Grimes away from BYU to Colorado in February 2007. He had previously worked with Hawkins at Boise State and also served with Colorado offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich at ASU. Grimes served as the assistant head coach, running game coordinator and offensive line coach for the Buffaloes.

On January 18, 2009, Grimes was hired by new head coach Gene Chizik to fill the vacant position coaching the offensive line at Auburn.^[2]

After the 2010 season, Grimes was interviewed by Mack Brown to become the new offensive line coach at the University of Texas, where it was reported he would have become the highest paid coach at his position in the country.^[3] Ultimately, Grimes decided to stay at Auburn.^[4]

At the end of the 2012 season, Chizik was fired by Auburn. Former offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was hired as head coach on December 4, 2012. Shortly after being hired, Malzahn announced that all assistant coaches were being released, thus ending Grimes' career at Auburn.^[5]

On January 18, 2013, Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer announced Grimes' hiring as one of three new Hokies offensive assistants, along with offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler (also formerly of Auburn) and wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead (formerly of Stanford University).^[6]

Following Virginia Tech's 2013 bowl game, Grimes accepted the offensive line coaching job at LSU under Les Miles replacing Greg Studrawa. The news was unofficially released on January 15, 2014 and later confirmed by Virginia Tech's RB coach, Shane Beamer.^[7][8]

In December 2017, he was named the offensive coordinator at BYU, replacing Ty Detmer.

Grimes has experience coaching in seven bowl games: the 2000 Aloha Bowl, 2002 Holiday Bowl, 2005 Las Vegas Bowl, 2006 Las Vegas Bowl, 2007 Independence Bowl, 2010 Outback Bowl, 2011 BCS National Championship Game and the 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl.

Players coached

Grimes has helped developed a number of highly rated players. Twelve of his former players went on to play professionally in the NFL including Andrew Carnahan, Edwin Harrison, Matt Hill, Drew Hodgdon, Levi Jones (the 10th overall pick of the 2002 draft), Kyle Kosier, Jake Kuresa, Scott Peters, Tyler Polumbus, Dallas Reynolds, Ray Feinga, Scott Young, and Leonard Fournette. A number of them were awarded All-Conference honors, including Carnahan, Hodgdon, Jones, Kosier, Peters, Scott, Kuresa, Young, Reynolds, Feinga and Hill.

References

External links

• Official Auburn bio
• Official Colorado bio