The national media is building a dangerous case against Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel
Josh Heupel is entering his sixth season as the Tennessee Volunteers’ head football coach.
I knew it was going to happen.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is dealing with the dumb narrative entering the 2026 season that I just knew was coming.
The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel made his predictions for the SEC in 2026, and he has the Vols going 7-5 this fall.
I don’t have any issue with that prediction. After all, we don’t know what the quarterback situation is going to look like for the Volunteers in 2026. And I don’t think anyone really knows what to expect from this Tennessee team until we see them play on Saturdays.
It’s what Mandel said about Heupel possibly going 7-5 that I find completely ridiculous. Mandel suggested that if Tennessee takes a step back from its 8-4 year last season then Heupel will go into 2027 on the hot seat.
“The Vols head coach got a pass for last year’s slip to 8-5, knowing Nico Iamaleava bailed on him in the spring,” wrote Mandel. “But he’s going to be trotting out an inexperienced QB (whether it’s Faizon Brandon or George MacIntyre) to go with a rebuilding defense. If the Vols take another step back, Heupel will go into 2027 on the hot seat.”
The narrative around Tennessee’s Josh Heupel is an example of the biggest problem with sports media right now
This is the problem with college football right now, and maybe sports in general. Everyone thinks way too much about outcomes and results over the process, and the process is ultimately what makes championship programs (Nick Saban said it best).
If that’s how the elite head coaches leading the sport’s biggest programs view it, then maybe the rest of us should follow suit?
It’s very possible that Tennessee goes 7-5 this fall with a freshman starting quarterback and a new defensive coordinator (Jim Knowles) and actually takes a step forward. The Vols could be a good football team and lose some close games that come down to one or two plays. They could be a 10-2 caliber team that just happens to go 7-5 because they were a handful of plays away. I mean, the margins are thin in college football – especially in this current era with so much parity (thanks to NIL and the transfer portal).
Tennessee should not be expected to compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff with a freshman starting quarterback. Sure, it could happen. Who knows, maybe it does happen for the Vols this fall. If Tennessee gets good quarterback play, the defense makes some serious strides under Knowles, the defensive line ends up being better than we think it’s going to be, and the ball bounces the Vols’ way a few times, maybe UT sneaks into the playoff. You just never know. But it shouldn’t be the expectation with a freshman starting quarterback.
Tennessee is ultimately gearing up for a championship run in 2027, which means a season with some growing pains may be necessary in 2026
How can you put a coach on the hot seat for going 7-5 in college football’s toughest conference with a freshman starting quarterback and a new defensive coordinator? That makes no sense.
Not to mention that Josh Heupel has a five-star running back in David Gabriel Georges coming in next season. That’s a kid who can be a real difference maker and a real centerpiece for the offense (and Heupel beat out Ohio State to get him, which shows a real belief in where Tennessee is going). Everything that happens in 2026 — the growing pains included — is helping the Vols build toward being a true contender in 2027. The Vols want to win every game on their schedule in 2026, but this is really a two-year plan.
Stuff like this from the college football media drives me nuts. It’s box score watching. They’re just looking at results without truly diving into where a team really is. It’s a flawed way of thinking. And unfortunately, this flawed way of thinking from the national media drives narratives that get coaches fired.
I’m not trying to say that results don’t matter, because they do. But we have to start looking at college football differently than we did 10 or 15 years ago. I’ve said it before, and I think it’s very true: it’s never been easier to compete for a championship in college football because of the parity, but it’s also never been harder because of the parity. Super Bowl winners lose several regular season games each year. No one analyzes those regular season losses the way they do in college football. College resembles the NFL more than ever. So maybe we should start analyzing college football in a similar way (or let’s just cut down on the hot takes in general). Losses are going to happen. The other team’s players are getting paid to make plays, too. There will be nights when Vols fans just have to tip their cap to the other team.
There are a lot of good teams that are going to lose four or five games this fall, and it doesn’t mean they have bad coaches. This is a dangerous narrative that’s being sold about Heupel, and I hope fans and other members of the media don’t buy into it.
