Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel waited a long time to make an important move for the Vols, and now it makes sense why
The Tennessee Vols made a big time move shortly after the College Football Playoff championship game.
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel has had a lot on his plate this offseason.
There were always going to be a lot of changes for the Vols after finishing the regular season with a 21 point loss to Vanderbilt.
One big move came quickly, with Heupel moving on from defensive coordinator Tim Banks and hiring former Ohio State and Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles before mid-December.
Another move that was considered critical, however, wasn’t made until the morning after Indiana took down Miami in the College Football Playoff championship game.
Tennessee finally hires a new strength coach
News broke on New Year’s Day that Tennessee wasn’t bringing back strength coach Kurt Schmidt in 2026.
Schmidt was Heupel’s strength coach at UCF from 2018 to 2020. He joined Heupel at Tennessee in 2021.
The move didn’t come as a big surprise as there were a lot of questions floating around this season about whether the Vols were physical enough.
Part of the reason those questions have surfaced is because Tennessee allowed the most rushing yards of the Heupel era in 2025. The Vols also rushed for the fewest yards of the Heupel era this past season.
There were also questions this season about whether Tennessee’s practices were physical enough.
CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz reported Tuesday morning that Tennessee is hiring Indiana strength coach Derek Owings to replace Schmidt.
According to Zenitz, Owings was Heupel’s top target.
With offseason strength programs about to kick off, there were questions about why Tennessee was taking so long to hire a strength coach.
The answer is now clear — Heupel had to wait for Indiana’s season to end before Owings could be officially announced.
Swiping Owings from the hottest program in college football is obviously a huge move for Tennessee. Not only is he someone who will make the Vols better, but it also shows that Heupel wasn’t messing around this offseason. Heupel was aggressive in his pursuit of a top defensive coordinator and a top strength coach and it paid off. The Vols got two of the best available this offseason.
Owings, by the way, has a connection to Heupel as the two spent one season together at UCF in 2018.
But it’s still impressive that Heupel was able to swipe Owings from Indiana considering the respected strength coach has been with Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti since 2020.
It may have seemed like Heupel was dragging his feet on hiring a strength coach, but it turns out he had his guy all along.
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