Vontrell King-Williams promoted, will coach Auburn's defensive line
AUBURN — Vontrell King-Williams has been promoted and will coach Auburn’s defensive line in 2024 and moving forward. Sources have confirmed the move to Auburn Live.
King-Williams joined Auburn’s support staff last offseason and worked alongside defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett.
Since, Garrett has accepted a position coaching the defensive line for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
King-Williams served as Eastern Michigan’s defensive tackles coach the previous season before coming on board with Hugh Freeze‘s staff in January. That came after serving as a defensive graduate assistant for two seasons on Freeze’s Liberty staff. From 2018 to 2019, he also held positions as a recruiting assistant and graduate assistant at EMU. After beginning his career at Illinois and playing junior college ball, he spent his final two seasons as a defensive line intern at UTSA in 2015 and 2016. This marked the beginning of his coaching career one year earlier.
“We are going to win,” King-Williams told Auburn Live. “Just being blunt about it, it’s going to happen, and we’re going to do it the right way. It won’t be a surprise when Auburn is back where it should be.
“I absolutely loved working with Coach Freeze at Liberty. You hear people talk about it, making the work environment enjoyable, but he truly lives that out. I missed it. When I got the opportunity to do it, I jumped right on it. There were just people telling me, with you and ‘JG’ together, y’all will kill it. I thought, why not go be a part of something bigger than myself?”
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Garrett said this of King-Williams last winter:
“It’s awesome, man. Vontrell is a huge addition for us. We talked about working together. When we were at Liberty, he was just there for two weeks. I think it’s huge for him to leave his own room where he’s coaching those defensive linemen there and to be able to come here and work with me and we do this thing together. I think that’s huge for him to make that decision and I think he understands that this is the SEC, this is Auburn.
“We could do something special here together. That’s what I tell him all the time, ‘hey man, you’re not working for me, you’re working with me.’ We’re together to capture these players, to recruit well and to really build a dominant front. So I think he brings a lot of energy and juice. I think he’s exactly what we need for our guys.”
Auburn announced last spring that King-Williams has been chosen for the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship Internship, and that he would spend this offseason learning under the Los Angeles Rams coaching staff. Zac Etheridge, the defensive backs coach at Auburn, was selected for the internship program for the second year in a row. In July of last year, Etheridge visited the Los Angeles Chargers’ training camp in Costa Mesa, California.
