Vols head coach Josh Heupel suddenly has a massively important decision to make
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel suddenly has a massively important decision to make. On Saturday night, Action Network's Brett McMurphy reported that Vols offensive coordinator Alex Golesh is set to become the new head coach at USF. Golesh, a native of Russia who attended Ohio State, has been with Heupel for the last three […]
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel suddenly has a massively important decision to make.
On Saturday night, Action Network's Brett McMurphy reported that Vols offensive coordinator Alex Golesh is set to become the new head coach at USF.
Golesh, a native of Russia who attended Ohio State, has been with Heupel for the last three seasons (2020 at UCF and the last two seasons at Tennessee). The feeling has been that Golesh would be a head coach sooner rather than later. Vols fans, however, were hoping that Golesh would stick around in Knoxville for one more season.
Heupel now has to hire an offensive coordinator. Does he go internal and promote someone or does he go with an outside hire?
If Heupel goes internal, the obvious answer would be to promote quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle.
Halzle has been in the booth all season with Alex Golesh, so he's been deeply involved in the playcalling process throughout the season. Halzle has also been with Heupel since his playing days at Oklahoma in the mid-2000s. The former Sooners quarterback worked under Heupel (as a grad assistant and quality control assistant) at Oklahoma after his playing days were over. Halzle then followed Heupel to Utah State, Missouri, UCF, and eventually Knoxville.
Continuity is important in this offense and it makes perfect sense to promote Halzle to offensive coordinator.
Considering this is Heupel's offense, the only way it makes sense to go outside for the hire would be to hire someone who has worked under Heupel before or has roots in a "veer and shoot" type offense. That limits the pool of potential options.
Someone like Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby would make some sense. Lebby was Heupel's offensive coordinator at UCF for two years before heading to Oxford to work for Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.
Lebby went to college at Oklahoma and it would probably be tough to get him to leave Norman for a lateral move. But after seeing how quickly Golesh got a head coaching job after working with Heupel at Tennessee, it might be tempting for Lebby to leave Norman for a year to make himself a more desirable head coaching candidate for the next coaching cycle.
Promoting Hazle would be best for continuity, but hiring someone like Lebby would eliminate concerns over a first-time play caller (even though Heupel would be involved in playcalling).
It'll be interesting to see which path Heupel chooses. It's an important decision, so it's imperative he gets it right.
Featured image via Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
