It’s no secret that opposing coaches like to use the false narratives about Josh Heupel’s offense to recruit against the Tennessee Vols.

The narrative, of course, is that Tennessee’s offense doesn’t translate to the NFL.

It’s low-hanging fruit for the coaches that choose to go down this road, and it’s also inaccurate.

Tennessee’s offense has evolved significantly over the last couple of years. Additionally, most college offenses are using simplified systems due to the constant turnover that college football rosters experience in the transfer portal era (there’s no depth and it’s essentially a brand new team with little continuity from year to year for many programs).

“The old offense had questions, the new offense has more NFL traits to it,” explained VolQuest’s Austin Price in February on 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will. “They rehauled and did everything different after two years ago. So, this past year, it’s why the route concepts, the route trees, the route combinations, all the things they do, had much more of an NFL twist to it.

“Before, Bru McCoy lines up at wide out and is split almost to the out of bounds line. And then stays in that same spot the whole game. Now, they move around. And so Brazzell was split out wide right, split out wide left, in the slot, in the slot left. The routes were different. And so I think the people that want to continue to recruit against Josh Heupel want to make that claim that it’s the same offense, but it’s not. And they’ll be the first to tell you that. What Dont’e Thornton ran, or what Bru McCoy ran, and what Chris Brazzell ran this past year, are two totally different offenses.”

2027 5-star wide receiver drops some strong quotes on Tennessee’s offense

One of the Vols’ top recruiting targets is 2027 five-star wide receiver Eric McFarland, 5-foot-8/177 pounds from Las Vegas, NV (he plays high school football at IMG Academy in Florida).

McFarland, who is rated as the No. 25 overall player in the 2027 recruiting class, took an official visit to Tennessee last month.

The five-star wide receiver spoke to 247Sports this week about his visit to Tennessee and about the misconceptions around the Vols’ offense.

“Honestly, what I learned was they really do run a fast-paced offense,” said McFarland. “People just really got to look more into it and watch their games, because you know a lot of people were concerned about their splits. But their splits are not as wide as they were before. You know they’re trying to change it, so that’s what I really took away from it.”

This is clearly something that Heupel and his staff are still fighting against — otherwise it wouldn’t come up with McFarland.

But it sounds like McFarland — who has been described by On3’s Charles Power as a “diminutive playmaker who is electric with the ball in his hands” — doesn’t have any concerns about Tennessee’s offense under Heupel.

As for McFarland’s recruitment, Texas A&M appears to be the team to beat. The Vols are in the fight, though.

Georgia and Florida are also in the mix.