On Wednesday, the University of Tennessee hired Josh Heupel to be the next football coach.  While it’s not the hire that The People wanted, it’s a safe hire that could pay off… unless it doesn’t.

Unlike the coaching search of 2017, the coaching search of 2021 was quick, quiet, and ended in what I can only describe as an anti-climactic headscratcher.  We have our new coach:  Former UCF head coach, Josh Heupel (pronounced HYPE-el, not HEWP-el).

Included on Heupel’s resume is a 12-1 season and Fiesta Bowl appearance at UCF, coordinated an offense at Missouri that put up video game numbers (and throttled the Vols *cough, cough*), and was part of several prolific offenses at Oklahoma first as a starting quarterback and later as an assistant coach and coordinator.   If there’s one thing that Josh Heupel knows better than us, its how to move the football and score points.  Heupel’s offense at UCF ranked Top 5 in all three seasons of his tenure. Read up more about Josh Heuple’s background here.

On paper, Heupel is perfectly fine.  He has an established history and puts up production that is very consistent at every stop. 

So why do I feel so weird about this hire??

Let me give you three reasons. 

Reason number 1: Tennessee is the place where trends and resumes come to die.

How many times over the last 15 years has Tennessee brought in a “quarterback whisperer”, an “up-tempo offensive innovator”, or a “defensive architect” only to find nothing but failure with the Vols?  Here’s the general life cycle of a coach of any capacity that joins Tennessee:

  • Coach has success with multiple random teams
  • Coach is hired by TN
  • Coach is underwhelming and has no success that resembles his previous stops
  • Coach is fired
  • Coach goes to another random team and immediately has success

Is the Knoxville air polluted??  Is the water from the TN River toxic??  Is it the dead bodies inside Neyland Stadium??

Maybe I’m exaggerating but it certainly feels this way.

Reason number 2:  The SEC still plays tough defense and is notoriously physical

Remember that stretch from 2007-2009 in the Big 12 where defense was optional at best?  Heupel coached Sam Bradford to produce huge numbers and won a Heisman but when you look back at that stretch, Bradford was mostly just keeping pace with the field.  Bradford, Colt McCoy, Graham Harrell, Chase Daniel, and Josh Freeman all put up BONKERS passing numbers. Big 12 defense was non-existent and Oklahoma was exposed by Florida’s dynamic defense in the 2008 National Championship game. 

Granted, the ’08 Gators defense was exceptionally skilled, but the premise remains.  The big boys of the SEC want to control the line of scrimmage, play physical, pressure the QB, and create turnovers. 

How is Heupel going to respond when his Tennessee offenses are supposed to score 40 points per game, but are only scoring 25 points per game because they’re getting manhandled by physical defenses?

Reason number 3:  I’ve lost the will to believe

Quick summary:

  • We convince ourselves that Fulmer can reclaim his past success so we keep him around a few years too long until firing him in 2008
  • We all climb aboard the Lane Train, lose our minds when defensive legend Monte Kiffin joins him, only to have our hearts ripped out when Lane Kiffin bolts for his “dream job” in the middle of the night (wait, we thought Tennessee WAS a dream job right??)
  • We give Derek Dooley a chance and convince ourselves that because he’s the son of Vince Dooley, eventually he’ll succeed.  He forgot that you’re actually supposed to recruit players for an offensive line.
  • We give Butch Jones a chance because he sells a fun and innovative offense and he tells us that things are going to be okay even when they are decisively not.  He turns out to be a used car salesman and a hateful one at that.
  • We give Jeremy Pruitt a chance because at this point, we’re officially incompetent so why not try this guy?  He can at least give us an elite defense right?   Turns out he couldn’t even put a passable defense on the field much less a full team.  Oh, there’s also all those recruiting violations and who knows how many sanctions are coming.

That covers 13 years in case anyone is counting.

Like I said, I’ve lost the will to believe.

HOWEVER…..

What if it kinda does work out??  What if he makes our offense, I don’t know, fun again?   Maybe a middle-of-the-pack guy who could inject some sort of excitement in what otherwise will certainly be a dark period for Vols football, is exactly what we need right now?

With self-imposed and NCAA sanctions looming as well as the talent exodus that has occurred since the end of the season, the Tennessee Volunteers are just not an attractive destination for the “Big Fish”.  It can be again one day, but right now the best we can do is hope for this tenure to be fun. 

The tweet below sums up my own thoughts/fears:

Unless the Vols go full Tennessee-crazy and things get weird, Heupel’s offense should be a blast.  It’s the defensive coordinator hire that will make or break Heupel’s tenure.  One or the other doesn’t cut it in the SEC.  

The point about the media worries me.  The Tennessee Volunteers are covered like a professional team.  Every breath that the leadership of this program takes is scrutinized.  The Vols are bigger in the state than the Tennessee Titans, Memphis Grizzlies, or Nashville Predators.  That kind of pressure is ultimately what has broken the last three coaches.  If Heupel can’t handle it, this will be another short ride. 

Do I think that Josh Heupel is capable of winning a National Championship as the head coach of Tennessee?  As of now, I do not.  My feeling is that if Heupel can make the Vols a fun football team, build them back to a competitive state (make an SEC Championship game at minimum), and keep the program drama-free for a few years, I’ll consider that a win.  Once the job is attractive again, the Big Fish will return. 

I’m also more than willing to be proven wrong.  Maybe Heupel makes a home run hire at defensive coordinator?  Maybe he embraces this job as his ultimate chance and makes the most of it?  It’s not crazy to think that things could break the right way and three years from now he has the Vols competing with Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. 

Yeah, c’mon.  This is Tennessee we’re talking about.  We all expect them to “Tennessee” things up and be right back here in 3 years introducing the next poor, unfortunate soul tasked with leading the Volunteers back to greatness. 

But for now we have to take what we can get. 

High risk, high reward. 

It will work out or it won’t. 

Flip a coin at this point. 

Wake me up in three years and tell me how it went.