Radio and television veteran Jim Rome believes Tennessee’s first-year coach Josh Heupel was a strong hire for the Vols and believes his ingenuity will offensively pay immediate dividends at the SEC this fall. Heupel was a guest on the Rome program this week and received rave reviews after joining the most competitive conference in college football.
“This is the guy I think is going to do this. I love him as a coach, ”said Rome at The Jim Rome Show via CBS Sports. “And I will go why – number one, very, very smart. Like, no matter what, everyone at that level can do X&O, but I think schematically, I think he’s very, very smart at what he does – how scarily smart.
“He does a great job of connecting with everyone, a great job of connecting with all the players along the line and knows how to run a program. I think they got it right. He will bring them back. “
New energy and optimism is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Vols, who went into crisis last fall before firing coach Jeremy Pruitt amid reports of recruitment violations after an internal investigation. Pruitt refuted these claims, but did not keep his job, giving way to new athletic director Danny White opening the door for Heupel.
Heupel told Rome this week that the first month in office at Knoxville has been a whirlwind since leaving UCF.
“It’s been a lot of fun. You’re trying to get to know your players here on campus, get to know your roster and allow them to have a chance to get to know you too, “said Heupel. I think this is where you spend most of your time and energy. continue to recruit and we did that.
“So you have to bring your team here. You put these three balls in the air and you are fighting a lot here early, but it has been fun. Knoxville is a great place, the University has tremendous leadership and is excited about who we have inside building and inside our team room. ”
White appeared on Sirius XM this week with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and said the search for a coach in Tennessee was arduous. Although White was quite familiar with Heupel because of the time they spent together in Orlando, Vols’ athletic director said he initially tried to avoid bringing Heupel to Tennessee.
White knew that this would only cause more turnover at UCF and tried to avoid that.
“You know, it was really painfully difficult when I realized it was the right decision, because I knew I was creating more transition for the team at UCF,” said White. “This part was very difficult. I didn’t take this job planning to do that. “
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Austin Nivison of 247Sports contributed to this report.