Prominent national media outlet has laughable coach ranking for Tennessee's Josh Heupel
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel didn't get much love in The Athletic's top 25 coach rankings this week. The Athletic's Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel each revealed their top 25 college football head coach rankings this week and neither one of them have Heupel anywhere close to the top 10. Feldman has Heupel at […]
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel didn't get much love in The Athletic's top 25 coach rankings this week.
The Athletic's Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel each revealed their top 25 college football head coach rankings this week and neither one of them have Heupel anywhere close to the top 10.
Feldman has Heupel at No. 17 in his rankings while Mandel has Heupel at No. 24.
Both Feldman and Mandel have Heupel, who is 27-12 in three seasons at Tennessee, behind names such as Kansas State's Chris Klieman, Louisville's Jeff Brohm, Wake Forest's Dave Clawson, and Kentucky's Mark Stoops (Heupel is 3-0 against Stoops).
Mandel also has Heupel behind new Washington head coach Jedd Fisch, who is 17-22 overall as a head coach.
From The Athletic's Stewart Mandel: The Vols slipped back a bit from their breakout 11-2 campaign in Heupel’s second season but still finished 9-4 and a top 20 ranking. Heupel has produced four Top 25 teams in six seasons as a head coach (three at UCF, three at Tennessee). For some perspective: He is a modest 14-10 in SEC play during his time in Knoxville.
This might be one of the worst takes I've ever seen. Mandel points out Heupel's "modest" 14-10 record in SEC play (which includes wins against Alabama, Florida, LSU, Texas A&M, etc), but he casually leaves out that Fisch has gone 11-16 in three seasons in Pac-12 play (yet Mandel thinks Fisch is a better coach than Heupel).
Mandel also has Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith at No. 20, despite the fact that Smith is 34-35 in his career as a head coach.
Maybe Mandel is just trolling Heupel and the Vols. That's the only explanation for a ranking this bad. I mean who in their right mind is going to have Mark Stoops ranked above Heupel? Stoops is 0-3 against Heupel with two of those losses coming in Lexington!
Heupel entered a situation at Tennessee in 2021 that the national media described as a disaster. There were even national media members who suggested it would be five or more years before the Vols would return to a bowl game.
And Heupel has done nothing but exceed expectations.
That's not enough, though, to get a respectable ranking from The Athletic.
Bizarre? Yes. Surprising? No.
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