Football

Syracuse football assistant coach Tom Kaufman leaves program

Daily Orange File Photo

Head coach Dino Babers will add two new coaches to replace Mike Hart and Tom Kaufman.

Former Syracuse special teams coordinator and linebackers coach Tom Kaufman has left the program, an SU Athletics spokesman confirmed. Syracuse.com first reported the news.

Kaufman is SU’s second coach to leave the program in less than a week. Last Thursday, former SU running backs coach Mike Hart left for the same position at Indiana.

Kaufman, whom head coach Dino Babers hired in January 2016, coached at Syracuse for one season. He served under Babers for four seasons at Eastern Illinois (2012-13) and Bowling Green (2014-15) before taking the SU job for Babers’ first year. In 2016, SU’s special teams unit placed in the middle to upper-end of the Atlantic Coast Conference leaderboard in field goals, punting, kickoff returns and punt returns.

Kaufman accepted the defensive coordinator job at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the Southern Conference school announced Tuesday afternoon via Twitter.

In 2003, Kaufman began his coaching career at Heidelberg College. He worked various jobs since, including special teams coordinator and linebackers coach at Case Western Reserve, defensive coordinator at Chicago, graduate assistant at Mississippi State and quality control coach at both Kansas and Texas.

With two coaches gone, Babers and his staff will add two to fill out the nine-member team. Syracuse spring practices begin March 21.





Top Stories