Kirk Herbstreit refuses to give Josh Heupel credit for his offensive style
Last week, ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit threw some shade at the Tennessee Vols over the recruitment of five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava. Iamaleava allegedly received an $8 million NIL deal to commit to Tennessee. And Herbstreit wasn't a fan of that move. On Tuesday, Herbstreit continued his assault against the Vols by refusing to give Josh Heupel […]
Last week, ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit threw some shade at the Tennessee Vols over the recruitment of five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
Iamaleava allegedly received an $8 million NIL deal to commit to Tennessee. And Herbstreit wasn't a fan of that move.
On Tuesday, Herbstreit continued his assault against the Vols by refusing to give Josh Heupel credit for his innovative offensive system that led Tennessee to the No. 7 scoring offense in the nation last season.
Herbstreit appeared on "The Paul Finebaum Show" on Tuesday and answered a question about Heupel's offense by suggesting that the Vols head coach runs the "Jeff Lebby offense".
"What he (Heupel) runs is very similar to what you saw from Jeff Lebby, who used to be with Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss," said Herbstreit. "Jeff Lebby went with Brent Venables to Oklahoma. Lebby was with Art Briles at Baylor and Kendal Briles of course was on that staff too and now he's at Arkansas. So that offensive system is kind of branching itself out."
Herbstreit completely glossed over the fact that Lebby learned the system he's going to run at Oklahoma from Heupel during their time together at UCF in 2018 and 2019.
Heupel and Lebby were originally together off and on at Oklahoma in the early to mid-2000s. They went their separate ways for a bit — Lebby went to Baylor as Herbstreit mentioned — before reuniting at UCF in 2018.
Now, Herbstreit is correct that Heupel's offense has some elements of Art Briles' old veer-and-shoot offense. It also has some air raid elements (which Heupel learned from Mike Leach at Oklahoma).
But Heupel didn't learn offense from that from Lebby.
We know that Heupel started experimenting with tempo during his time as the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops. Heupel took his offense to the next level during his two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Missouri (2016 and 2017). That's the first time Heupel basically had autonomy over the offense. And the offense at Missouri is very similar to what he's running now at Tennessee (and what he ran at UCF).
The offense that Lebby runs is heavily influenced by Heupel, who managed to blend two different systems (veer-and-shoot and air raid) to create his own unique offense that scores points in a hurry.
I don't know what Herbstreit has against Tennessee, but it seems awfully difficult for him to give Heupel and the Vols any credit these days.
Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
