The Tennessee Vols quietly made a big statement this week without technically doing a thing.

Earlier this week, the Miami Hurricanes hired offensive coordinator Josh Gattis away from the Michigan Wolverines. Gattis will serve in the same position at Miami.

That's the third high-profile hire that new Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal has made recently. He also hired defensive coordinator Kevin Steele away from Maryland and defensive backs coach Jahmile Addae away from Georgia. All of these coaches have left for Miami in lateral moves.

Miami isn't playing around. The program is committed to spending a lot of cash to become relevant again (that's how Miami landed four-star running back TreVonte' Citizen, a Louisiana native, over LSU).

Gattis was set to make $1 million at Michigan this season. The assumption is that he'll make more than that at Miami.

So what does all of this have to do with Tennessee?

Gattis wasn't necessarily Cristobal's first choice.

Last week, it was reported that Cristobal was interested in hiring Vols offensive coordinator Alex Golesh.

It's understandable why Golesh was higher on Cristobal's list — Tennessee had the No. 7 scoring offense in the nation in 2021 while playing in the SEC. Michigan had the No. 16 scoring offense while playing in the Big 10.

There's also the fact that Golesh has Florida recruiting connections thanks to his time at UCF.

Golesh made $750,000 last year at Tennessee. He could've easily made more at Miami.

But instead, Golesh is remaining in Knoxville. This is the second high-profile coordinator job he's passed on this offseason (Ole Miss was the other).

Golesh is clearly an in-demand coordinator. And he's not making an exorbitant amount of money at UT. I don't think anyone would blame him for leaving the Volunteers for a bigger payday.

He's staying at Tennessee, along with the rest of the Vols' on-field staff from 2021, because of the incredible culture that Josh Heupel has built at UT.

Previous head coach Jeremy Pruitt had a ridiculous amount of staff turnover during his three years on Rocky Top. Heupel isn't having that same issue.

I think that's a good indicator of future success. When things aren't going well, or when the vibes are off, assistant coaches quickly jump ship (take a look at what's happening with Auburn and Bryan Harsin).

We haven't seen any of that with Heupel so far at Tennessee. And that's evidence of an extremely healthy program that's ready to take a big step forward in 2022.

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