How Tennessee's latest transfer offer might give us a hint about Josh Heupel's next coaching staff hire
One of the Tennessee Vols' latest NCAA transfer portal offers might give us a hint when it comes to Josh Heupel's next coaching staff hire. Tennessee extended an offer to North Texas tight end Jake Roberts on Thursday. Roberts, a 6-foot-5 tight end from Norman, OK, is a former three-star recruit who caught 28 passes […]
One of the Tennessee Vols' latest NCAA transfer portal offers might give us a hint when it comes to Josh Heupel's next coaching staff hire.
Tennessee extended an offer to North Texas tight end Jake Roberts on Thursday.
Roberts, a 6-foot-5 tight end from Norman, OK, is a former three-star recruit who caught 28 passes for 394 yards and three touchdowns this past season.
Alright, so how does this give us a hint about Heupel's coaching staff hire plans?
Well, the Vols need a tight ends coach/offensive coordinator to replace Alex Golesh.
The general feeling is that quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle will slide into the offensive coordinator role, which leaves Tennessee with a need for a tight ends coach.
Roberts' head coach at North Texas was Seth Littrell, who was fired at the end of the 2022 season.
Littrell, who coached tight ends before becoming the head coach at North Texas, has a unique connection to Heupel — Littrell and Heupel were teammates together at Oklahoma for a couple of seasons.
Bringing Littrell on the coaching staff would make a lot of sense. He knows Heupel, he has plenty of coaching experience, and he comes from the Mike Leach coaching tree, so he's at least familiar with running a different style of offense. Littrell also spent two seasons on the North Carolina Tar Heels' staff, which means he should have some recruiting connections in the Carolinas (which is an important recruiting area again for the Vols).
There hasn't been a lot of movement on Golesh's replacement, but Littrell is certainly a name to keep an eye on.
Featured image via George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK
