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When you are in Tennessee in its current state, you make a Maybe rental.
Maybe it works. Maybe not. You can have hope, but you cannot be sure. You aren’t in a position to attract a sure-fire A-List candidate to lead your ramshackle football program – new athletic director Danny White has tried this in recent days, and it hasn’t worked. So you keep working on the list – from proven to pop to maybe – until you get a yes.
It can be a great job, on paper in the top half of the Southeastern Conference and with the potential to compete for league and national titles. But for now, it’s an uncertain job, fraught with peril and clouded by the unknown, with a fan base that could politely be characterized as volatile. This narrows down the pool of viable candidates in Maybes, and White chose a Familiar Maybe.
Reinhold Matay / USA TODAY Sports
This is Josh Heupel, introduced on Wednesday as the new Volunteers coach. Heupel was evacuated from central Florida by White, himself fresh out of UCF last week, raising questions as to whether White also loaded the stadium sign for the 2017 Knights National Championship (legendary) on the private jet from Tennessee. The Big Orange raid on Orlando took everything but the last grain of Who Hash.
Heupel was 28-8 at UCF, a stellar record, but there is evidence the program was in decline under him. He inherited a team coming from a 13–0 season with a returning superstar quarterback in McKenzie Milton, and his seasons have gone 12–1, 10–3, 6–4. After a 9–0 first season in the American Athletic Conference, he went 11–5 the next two seasons.
(History may view Milton nicer than anyone when it comes to UCF’s run from 17-18. Scott Frost’s record as a head coach with Milton as his starting quarterback was 17-6. ; without him, from 14 to 21. Heupel’s record with Milton was 11 to 0; without him, from 17 to 8. And Milton’s presence at UCF played an important role in arriving at the school of fellow Hawaiian and current QB Dillon Gabriel.)
For many Tennessee fans, Heupel rental is the next step in understanding what the program is. They ignored a dozen years of evidence that Flights are just another program – instead they believe in Santa Gruden and believe that hiring coaches like Greg Schiano and Dave Doeren was below price. ‘them. The point is, it’s a tough sell right now.
James Franklin was not leaving Penn State Job Security for Tennessee, no matter how much money White might have offered. PJ Fleck? Please. SMU coach Sonny Dykes isn’t leaving Texas for a tough schedule that faces Alabama, Georgia and Florida every season. And offensive coordinator Tony Elliott wasn’t going to give up Clemson’s rock-solid reliability for Rocky Top.
Since Phillip Fulmer’s last strong season in 2007, Tennessee football has been that way: a losing streak (78–82 overall, 36–70 in the SEC, zero East Division titles); a program in constant transition (Heupel is the sixth permanent head coach); and now a program immersed in a major self-recognized NCAA investigation that has months (maybe years) to unfold.
From 2008 to 20, the SEC Flights’ winning percentage was 0.339. The only Eastern Division programs below that are Kentucky and Vanderbilt. South Carolina (.481) and Missouri (.473 since joining the league in ’12) are well ahead of Tennessee.
The records against the teams the Vols used to fight in the East are frightening: Florida have won 15 of their last 16 games against Tennessee; Georgia have won nine of their last 11. And the annual crossover rivalry against Alabama is a recurring nightmare – the Crimson Tides have won 14 straight wins. Since Bama nose tackle Terrence Cody blocked a last-second basket for victory in 09, Lane Kiffin’s only season at UT, the fate of the two programs has been radically different.
Alabama wins national titles. Tennessee leads the country in dysfunction.
Hiring White was at least a step towards competence, and a far cry from the toxic culture that has permeated Knoxville for too long. Fulmer worked his way into the sporting director role amid a ridiculous fan revolt and wasted no time in proving his inadequacy for the job. He hired Jeremy Pruitt, who hadn’t a proven track record as he was an SEC ball coach, and what he got was a guy who couldn’t win and whose staff couldn’t live up to the rules. rules.
The former coach, AD comfort rental company, is a relic of the 20th century. White is a sharp break with that. He’s paid a lot ($ 1.8 million) to clean up the place and run a department impervious to interference from fans and boosters. How Vol Nation accepts a heupel hiring that does not please the public will be a measure of its understanding that this is a new era.
Heupel fulfills White’s wish for a trainer with a certain brand – in this case, a high-powered, rookie-friendly, rookie-friendly attack. The UCF was second nationally in total offense in 20, averaging 568.1 yards per game, and Gabriel led the country in passing yards per game to 357. After years of watching the game’s infractions. Tennessee spit, that should change.
The flip side is that UCF allowed 33.2 points per game in ’20, 92nd nationally and their maximum for a winless season in ’15. That was a big reason the Knights didn’t beat a single team last season that ended with a winning record. This note 6–4 is not based on anything substantial.
Cincinnati, a more complete team, had become the dominant program of the AAC. Memphis won the 19 league title. The UCF run was brilliant, but brief, leaving questions as to whether it can be replicated in a much more difficult conference and in a school with fewer natural advantages. .
Maybe Josh Heupel can do it. Maybe he can’t. This is exactly the kind of rental that the ragged and troubled Tennessee was intended to make.
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