There’s an ongoing debate about whether Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is calling plays for the Vols’ offense.

Heupel is famously guarded about the play-calling process at Tennessee, and he usually doesn’t give a straight answer when asked.

We know that Alex Golesh, who is currently the head coach at Auburn, called plays for Tennessee’s offense in 2022.

This is really good stuff: Alex Golesh talking about his relationship with Josh Heupel and how the playcalling between them worked pic.twitter.com/2vhSKeyYtc

— zach ragan (@zachTNT) December 7, 2022

When Golesh left Tennessee after the 2022 season to become the head coach at USF, quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle was promoted to offensive coordinator.

Heupel, however, called plays for the Vols’ offense in 2023 and 2024.

It sounds like Joey Halzle is currently Tennessee’s primary play-caller

Over the last two years, there’s been some confusion about whether Heupel is still calling plays.

But it certainly sounds like Halzle is currently Tennessee’s primary play-caller.

Former Vols assistant coach Doug Matthews said last November that Halzle called plays in 2025.

And then earlier this month, after Tennessee’s win over Arkansas, former Volunteers quarterback Jonathan Crompton said on the A to Z Sports postgame show that Halzle is calling plays in 2026.

“Somebody (in the comments of the live stream) just said Heupel calls the plays,” said Crompton on October 10. “No, he doesn’t. First off, no, he doesn’t. Second off, you can go back and look at his time at UCF until now. Even all the way to his first year at Tennessee, the formations are not even close to the same. He’s not calling the plays. I’m just telling you.

“He did the same things (offensively) when he was at Missouri to UCF to Tennessee. Now it’s different. He does not call the plays. He has a hand in it because he’s the head coach. He can override anything — he’s the head coach. But he’s not calling every offensive play. That’s all I’m telling you.”

If you’ve watched the games lately, it certainly appears that Heupel, when he’s shown on the sideline during the broadcast, is doing far less talking on the headset between plays than what we’ve seen in the past.

Now, as Crompton said, Heupel obviously still has a say in play-calling. I’m sure there are situational things where he says, “Hey, let’s go to this.”

But for the most part, it sounds like it’s Halzle’s show.

And that makes sense. The Vols are getting a lot of different looks from opposing defenses. It’s far easier to diagnose what’s happening in real time from the press box than it is on the sideline where it can be tough to get a good look at the defensive formations.

There’s no doubt that Heupel and Halzle are constantly communicating about the offensive approach throughout the game, but it doesn’t seem that Heupel is calling every play this season like he has at times in the past.