As Tennessee gets set to take on Bowling Green on Sept. 2, ESPN broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit joined the Erik Ainge on The Sports Animal in Knoxville to discuss his early impressions and expectations for Josh Heupel and the Vols.

Heupel took over from Jeremy Pruitt following a 3-7 record in 2020, and was hired by former UCF Athletics Director Danny White, who also came from UCF to start the year.

“He’s going to bring in the ability to put a lot of points up on the board with the offensive style,” said Kirk Herbstreit. “It’s very reminiscent of when Baylor really had things going with RG3 and the quarterbacks they had when would just spread you out. I remember doing Baylor games before everyone was running that offense, they’d have one guy two feet from one sideline and another guy two feet from the other sideline, and I’m like, ‘What in the heck is this? They got people spread out.’ What they were essentially doing is making you declare — are you going to be way outside or are you going to load up the box and stop the run.”

While it’s a new regime on Rocky Top, Tennessee have become used to going through a lot of different coaches the past few years with very little stability at the position since the firing of long-time coach Philip Fulmer in the early 2000s.