When you are in the current state of Tennessee, do a Maybe Hire.
Maybe it will work. Maybe not. You can have hope, but no certainty. You are not in a position to attract an infallible candidate to lead your dilapidated football program – new athletic director Danny White tried this in the last few days, and it didn’t work. So you keep working on the list – from proven to fussy to maybe – until you get a yes.
It can be a great job, on paper, in the upper half of the Southeast Conference and with the potential to dispute national championships and titles. But for the moment, it is a dubious job, fraught with dangers and clouded by the unknown, with a fan base that can be politely characterized as volatile. This reduces the pool of viable candidates for Maybes, and White chose a familiar Maybe.
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It’s Josh Heupel, introduced Wednesday as the new Volunteer coach. Heupel was kicked out of Central Florida by White, himself fresh out of UCF himself last week, which makes it fair to wonder if White also carried the plaque from the 2017 Knights National Championship (mythical) stadium on Tennessee’s private jet. The Big Orange attack on Orlando took everything but the last particle of Who Hash.
Heupel was 28-8 years old at UCF, a stellar record, but there is evidence that the program was declining below him. He inherited a team coming out of a 13-0 season with the return of superstar quarterback McKenzie Milton, and his seasons were 12-1, 10-3, 6-4. After a 9-0 debut season at the American Athletic Conference, he went 11-5 over the next two seasons.
(History may consider Milton as kinder than anyone when it comes to the UCF’s 17-18 race. Scott Frost’s record as head coach with Milton as a starting defender was 17-6; without him he is 14-21. Heupel’s record with Milton was 11-0; without him, it’s 17-8. And Milton’s presence at UCF played a significant role in the arrival of his Hawaiian classmate and current QB holder Dillon Gabriel to school there.)
For many Tennessee fans, hiring Heupel is the next step in understanding what the program is. They ignored a dozen years of evidence that the Vols are just another program – instead, believe in Santa Gruden and believe that hiring coaches like Greg Schiano and Dave Doeren was below them. The fact is that this is a difficult sale at the moment.
James Franklin was not leaving Penn State’s secure job for Tennessee, no matter how much money White was offering. PJ Fleck? Please. SMU coach Sonny Dykes is not leaving the state of Texas for a difficult program that has to fight Alabama, Georgia and Florida every season. And offensive coordinator Tony Elliott would not trade Clemson’s solid reliability for Rocky Top.
Since Phillip Fulmer’s last good season in 2007, Tennessee football has been like this: a losing program (78-82 overall, 36-70 in the SEC, zero Eastern Division titles); a program in constant transition (Heupel is the sixth permanent technician); and now a program immersed in a major self-recognized NCAA investigation that still has months (perhaps years) to unfold.
From ’08 to ’20, Vols’ SEC winning percentage was 0.339. The only East Division programs below that are Kentucky and Vanderbilt. South Carolina (0.481) and Missouri (0.473 since joining the league in ’12) are well ahead of Tennessee.
The record against the teams the Vols used to fight in the East is scary: Florida won 15 out of the last 16 against Tennessee; Georgia has won nine of its last 11. And the annual cross-rivalry against Alabama is a recurring nightmare – the Crimson Tide has won 14 in a row. Since Bama’s nose, Terrence Cody, blocked a field goal at the last second for victory in 2009, Lane Kiffin’s only season at UT, the fates of the two programs have been dramatically divergent.
Alabama is winning national titles. Tennessee leads the nation in dysfunction.
Hiring White was at least one step towards competence, and away from the toxic culture that has long infiltrated Knoxville. Fulmer plotted his way into the job of sports director amid a ridiculous fan revolt and wasted no time in proving his inadequacy in that position. He hired unproven Jeremy Pruitt because he was a SEC Ball coach, and what he got was a guy who couldn’t win and whose team couldn’t follow the rules.
The former comfortable rental AD bus is a relic of the 20th century. White is a clear break from this. He’s getting a lot of money ($ 1.8 million) to clean up the place and run an impenetrable department for nosy fans and supporters. The way Vol Nation accepts a hiring of Heupel that does not move the population will be a measure of its understanding that this is a new era.
Heupel fulfills White’s wish for a coach with a certain brand – in this case, a powerful, friendly attack for fans and recruitment. UCF was the second nationally offensive in 20, averaging 568.1 yards per game, and Gabriel led the nation in passing yards per game in 357. After years of watching Tennessee offensives, that must be changing.
The flip side is that UCF allowed 33.2 points per game in ’20, 92nd nationally and its maximum since a season without a win in ’15. That was a big reason why the Knights didn’t beat a single team last season that ended with a winning record. This 6–4 mark is not built on anything of substance.
Cincinnati, a more complete team, had become the dominant program at AAC. Memphis won the league title in 1919. The UCF race was brilliant, but brief, leaving doubts about whether it could be replicated in a much more difficult conference and in a school with fewer natural advantages.
Maybe Josh Heupel can do that. Maybe he can’t. This is exactly the kind of tattered and troubled rent Tennessee was destined to make.