Jeff Grimes

Personal life

Grimes graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in education, and earned his master’s 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, with whom he has four children: daughters Bailey and Jada and sons Garrison and Greydon.

Playing career

Grimes earned four letters as an offensive tackle for the UTEP Miners between 1987 and 1990. He was coached by Marty Mornhinweg, Dave Toub, Andy Reid and Dirk Koetter (Mornhinwig was QB Coach, Toub Was strength coach, Reid was the offensive line coach with Koetter as offensive coordinator). Grimes was not drafted into the National Football League 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 Dirk Koetter at Boise State 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 Arizona State after the season, Grimes also left the Broncos to join the Sun Devils program, serving as offensive line coach and running game coordinator. Grimes achieved great success at ASU, with four of his 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 Brigham Young University 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.

Dan Hawkins lured Grimes away from BYU to Colorado in February 2007. He had previously worked with Hawkins at Boise State and also served with CU offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich at Arizona State. 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 University.

After the 2010 season, Grimes was interviewed by Mack Brown to become the new OL coach at the University of Texas where it was reported he would become the highest paid coach at his position in the country. Ultimately, Grimes decided to stay at Auburn.

At the end of the 2012 season, Gene 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 University.

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).

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

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 National Football League including Andrew Carnahan, Edwin Harrison, Matt Hill, Drew Hodgdon, Levi Jones (the 10th overall pick of the 2002 draft), Eddie Keele, Kyle Kosier, Jake Kuresa, Scott Peters, Tyler Polumbus, Travis Scott and Scott Young. Nine of them were awarded All-Conference honors including Carnahan, Hodgdon, Jones, Kosier, Peters, Scott, Kuresa, Young and Hill.