Can Josh Heupel Lead Tennessee Out Of The Football Wilderness?

The former Heisman runner-up inherits a most uncertain future on Rocky Top.

When word came Wednesday morning that Tennessee had hired Josh Heupel as its new head football coach, I tried a little experiment.

I retweeted the news posted by Knoxville radio host Jimmy Hyams and waited. It wasn’t long before someone responded with a brief video of a dumpster fire.

So much for the honeymoon.

“They (the Tennessee fans) will not be happy,” said Hyams. “They will feel like Tennessee settled.”

But here are the facts on the ground. When it came to hiring a new football coach, Tennessee athletics director Danny White had three options:

1—Convince a sitting Power Five head coach to leave his current job and come to Tennessee. Hyams reported that Penn State coach James Franklin was a target in the search. But given the uncertainty of the future of the program concerning rules violations recently outlined by the UT chancellor, getting a proven Power Five coach was a long shot at best.

In a press conference where head coach Jeremy Pruitt was fired earlier this month, Chancellor Donde Plowman said that the rules violations found in an internal investigation were “stunning.”

“At that point it (Tennessee) is not an attractive job,” said Hyams.

2—Identify a successful Group of Five head coach with a strong background in offense.

The game has changed. Fans still want you to win every game. But when you don’t win, you damned well better be entertaining.

And this is critical. You must, MUST, be able to recruit and develop elite quarterbacks. Not good quarterbacks. Elite quarterbacks.

There are a lot of reasons why Pruitt is no longer the head coach at Tennessee. The inability to get a quarterback is a very important one.

Example: Ole Miss under Lane Kiffin. The Rebels went 5-5 last season but the fans were thrilled because of an offense that hung over 600 yards and 48 points against Alabama.

And Kiffin developed Matt Carrol into the No. 3 quarterback in the SEC in passing yards per game behind Florida’s Kyle Trask and Alabama’s Mac Jones.

3—Give the job to Tennessee assistant coach Kevin Steele for a year and then see what the candidate pool looks like at the end of 2021.

White choose option 2 and, early in the process, it looks like it was his best option.

Heupel, who was a national championship quarterback at Oklahoma and the runner-up (to Florida State’s Chris Weinke) for the 2000 Heisman Trophy, was 28-8 in three seasons at UCF after replacing Scott Frost. His last two offenses both finished No. 2 in the nation. He developed quarterback Dillon Gabriel into the nation’s No. 1 passer last season at 357 yards per game.

Gabriel, it should be noted, just finished his sophomore season at UCF and has two years of eligibility left. Just sayin’.

Before coming to UCF Heupel played a hand in developing Drew Lock into an NFL quarterback with the Denver Broncos.

Yes, Danny White is Heupel’s old boss which makes this more of a comfortable hire. But the fact is, White’s got a pretty good track record of hiring coaches in his previous stops at UCF and Buffalo.

At Buffalo (2012-2015) he hired ultra-successful Lance Leipold away from Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. Leipold had a record of 109-6 won six Division III national championships when he became head coach at Buffalo.

Leipold struggled his first two seasons at Buffalo and is 24-10 the past three seasons.

At Buffalo White also hired Bobby Hurley as its men’s basketball coach. When Hurley left for Arizona State, White hired Nate Oats, who is now the head coach at Alabama. Oats took Buffalo to three NCAA Tournaments in four seasons.

At UCF he hired Scott Frost and Heupel in football and Johnny Dawkins in men’s basketball.

So Tennessee, which has been in the football wilderness since Phillip Fulmer was forced out after the 2008 season, starts over again.

Is Josh Heupel the coach to get the Volunteers back on the level of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama?

Stay tuned.

"I am thrilled to be coming to Tennessee," Heupel said in statement released by the school. "I understand that Volunteer fans are hungry for a return to the top that they so richly deserve, and it is my goal and commitment to bring a championship back to Rocky Top."