Popular hot take from when Josh Heupel was hired at Tennessee can officially be settled after news that dropped on Groundhog Day
It’s been five years since the Tennessee Vols hired Josh Heupel as the program’s new head coach.
It’s been five years since the Tennessee Vols hired Josh Heupel to replace Jeremy Pruitt as the program’s head coach.
And it’s gone far better than most folks expected.
Heupel took over a program that was at rock bottom after going 3–7 in 2020 and enduring a massive recruiting scandal that still limits Tennessee’s ability to recruit five years later.
But despite taking over a bad situation, Heupel has gone 45-20 in five seasons on Rocky Top. He led the Vols to the College Football Playoff in 2024, he has two wins against Alabama, three wins against Florida, an Orange Bowl win against Clemson, and a win against LSU in Death Valley. It hasn’t been perfect — Heupel is still trying to get Tennessee “over the hump” — but it’s been far better than what Vols fans experienced the previous 10 to 15 years.
It’s certainly been better than what UCF fans expected from Heupel at Tennessee.
Big debate from when Josh Heupel was hired at Tennessee can officially be settled
Heupel was hired by the Vols after spending the previous three seasons as the head coach at UCF.
Many UCF fans, somewhat surprisingly, weren’t sad to see Heupel go in early 2021 (Heupel went 28-8 in three seasons at UCF).
Those fans, in fact, felt like UCF upgraded by replacing Heupel with former Auburn coach Gus Malzahn.
Tthe king of bad hot takes (and negativity in general), Paul Finebaum, offered a similar take back in 2021.
Five years later, we can officially say that those takes were, well, awful.
Malzahn was fired by UCF after the 2024 season after going 28-24 in four seasons. He was named as Florida State’s offensive coordinator ahead of the 2025 season, but that gig didn’t last long as Malzahn announced his retirement on Groundhog Day.
So much for “upgrading”.
UCF lost a good coach when they lost Heupel. And they didn’t upgrade by hiring Malzahn, a coach who was clearly in the twilight of his coaching career when he took over for Heupel five years ago.
This is another great reminder that no one ever knows how a hire will actually work out. All of those “grand slam hire” takes you see when a coach gets hired? They’re nothing more than a coin flip — whether it’s a random fan or a popular college football talking head spewing it.
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