When Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson prepared to give Jeremy Garrett the biggest promotion of his young career, he looked toward first the former Auburn defensive line coach’s previous time in the NFL.

In 2020 and 2021, Garrett was the assistant defensive line coach with the Cleveland Browns. There, he worked with an NFL star in Browns defensive end Myles Garrett. It’s an experience with an elite player Pederson hopes will carry over to Jacksonville.

“He obviously has a really good background, a collegiate background, but he’s been in the NFL, he’s been an intern, been an assistant different places,” Pederson said Tuesday at the NFL Combine. “So he knows. He’s been around great players. He had a chance to be around Myles Garrett in Cleveland, Olivier Vernon in Cleveland.”

Garrett spent the 2023 season as Auburn’s defensive line coach, coming with new head coach Hugh Freeze over from Liberty. Garrett was Liberty’s defensive line coach in 2022.

He helped develop Marcus Harris and Justin Rogers into NFL Drafts prospects — both will be participating in the Combine this week — and Keldric Faulk to freshman All-SEC recognitions.

Garrett was one of several Jaguars hires this offseason coming directly out of college including inside linebackers coach Matt House from LSU, cornerbacks coach Cory Robinson from Tennessee and running backs coach Jerry Mack from Tennessee.

It’s part of a growing trend, with several coaches leaving college positions due to uncertainty and frustration with the new landscape of the sport with NIL’s impact on recruiting and the wide-open world of the transfer portal — even like former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly choosing to leave a head coach job for an assistant position at Ohio State.

Pederson was asked if any of the hires he made from the college level commented on the state of college football when making the move to the NFL.

Pederson’s answer was short: Yes, they did.

“There was a few comments of that,” Pederson said. “Guys are always looking. They love the NFL, they love football. In our game, you don’t have as much recruiting and all that kind of stuff that you’re dealing with. A few guys had made that comment, yes.”

Pederson did not specify if Garrett specifically mentioned this during interviews with the Jaguars.

But the reason why Pederson picked Garrett had more to do with the way he approached his coaching style.

“When I sat down and interviewed him, the thing that stood out right away was his confidence and his attention to detail,” Pederson told AL.com on Tuesday. “That’s who I am as a coach. You pay attention to the little things. That’s what drew me to him, allowed me to hire him and get him on staff.”

Now in Jacksonville, Garrett will coach under new Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen. Nielsen was Garrett’s college coach when he was a player at Ole Miss.

Pederson said Neilsen, a former defensive line coach himself, will help in coaching the defensive line, too, as Garrett moves into his first full NFL position coach role.

Auburn promoted former defensive analyst Vontrell King-Williams to be the defensive tackles coach in place of Garrett. Since Garrett coached the whole defensive line, not just the tackles, Auburn then moved former linebackers Josh Aldridge to coach the edge rushers and new defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin will be in charge of the inside linebackers.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]