Tennessee AD Danny White comments on hiring of head coach Josh Heupel
It’s official, Josh Heupel is the new Tennessee head coach.
After hiring former UCF AD Danny White, Tennessee’s new AD turned around and hired his former coach to be the new face of Volunteer football.
Heupel comes to Rocky Top after going 28-8 in three seasons at UCF. Heupel also has SEC coaching experience as he served as Missouri’s offensive coordinator before landing the UCF head coaching position.
During his final season at Missouri, Heupel’s offense led the SEC in scoring. Following his first season at UCF, Heupel was named 2018 First Year Coach of the Year by the Football Writers Association of America.
“We looked at a number of potential candidates,” White said in a released statement. “Josh Heupel, who I had the privilege of working with for three years, is everything we were looking for: winning with integrity, a history of championships and the architect of explosive offenses. He is a players’ coach and the kind of person the student-athletes go the extra mile for. I saw that first-hand, and you can see it in his coaching record.”
It will be interesting to see how Heupel goes about building his first staff at Tennessee as the Volunteers have several positions open following the dismissal of two assistant coaches (Brian Niedermeyer and Shelton Felton) and two (Tee Martin and Chris Weinke) more on expiring contracts.
Good hire. College football is all about offense these days. At least if they lose they will at least entertain!
At least they’re letting White do his job, live or die by his own sword so-to-speak and he was able to keep the boosters/fans out of it from turning it into another coaching search disaster.
A lot of negativity and downright stupid comments from all sides including a lot of vol fans. Still see posts from vol fans asking why we didnt go after freeze. Just dont know how to get through to those fans. It was never going to be freeze…NEVER. We have serious sanctions coming, probably 2 years worth. Then it will likely take another 3 years to get back to normal. here is an idea. Lets give the guy a chance and see how he does. As I stated earlier the worst that can happen is he gets us through the sanctions and we then go after a more attractive big name candidate. Its really not a bad hire at all.
coaching career death sentence IF UT gets hammered by the NCAA, he will be hard-pressed to succeed. Recruiting, Can he recruit Texas, California, jawja? his knowledge of Florida will help. As much as I hate the vols the SEC needs them to be relevant.
Translation of what White said: “not too terrible for my third or fourth choice, amirite?!?”