Josh Heupel is in his sixth season as the head coach at Tennessee, and he’s evolved significantly over those six seasons.

Heupel went from being a coach who relied on wide splits and tempo to win games to a coach who relies on a stifling defense, controlling the clock via a powerful running game, and winning the field position battle.

The wide splits and tempo are fun — and the Vols can still use that approach when needed — but the new approach is a more sustainable way to win games in the SEC (and in the postseason).

It hasn’t been perfect, and mistakes have cost the Vols at times (nearly every team can say the same), but I think we’ve seen Heupel at his best as a coach this season.

And I think that was especially evident in Tennessee’s win over Kentucky this past Saturday.

Heupel stayed disciplined in his approach (he didn’t go for it on fourth-and-short several times and chose to punt), he didn’t get greedy, and he let his team wear Kentucky down before putting the game away in the fourth quarter (the Vols outscored the Wildcats 24-0 in the second half with 21 of those points coming in the fourth quarter).

Former Tennessee assistant coach Doug Matthews thought Heupel and his staff put on a coaching clinic in the win against Kentucky.

“Last night was a truly beautiful game to watch. … This was a well-played, well-coached, really good ball game — a beautiful ball game — and it was a beautiful way to start November,” said Matthews on Big Orange Sunday.

“There wasn’t a single phase of this game as I looked at it and watched it [where the team wasn’t] extremely well prepared,” continued Matthews. “This is exactly what you’re looking for as a coach. These guys should be, and I’m talking about the coaching staff, extremely proud of themselves. That’s what they’re paid to do. I know that. But still, you don’t get many games like this. I haven’t seen many games like this. I coached in over 120 of them [at Tennessee]. We didn’t have many like this. It was an extremely well prepared football team.

“When you combine the three phases of the game — defense, offense, and kicking game — it was the best that I’ve seen. The game planning and the preparation was excellent. It was outstanding play calling, and I thought it was an outstanding game by the head football coach. … When you have an extremely well-prepared team, what does that tell you? That tells you in the off week after giving a game away (against South Carolina) that all of the things that contributed to giving that game away two weeks ago were corrected, and that’s why Tennessee had a big win against a very good (Kentucky) football team.”

Former Vols quarterback Matt Simms had some similar thoughts while discussing the game on Monday on WNML’s SportsTalk.

“A lot of coaches, they really have a tough time changing and adapting,” said Simms. “For Tennessee Vols fans, your head coach is evolving mid-season, and that is a great sign for the future. Because being able to show the courage to do that this season and to show that it’s working and you’re being effective, this is just going to make him that much more powerful of a play caller and decision maker for the rest of his career. Just knowing that he can kind of pivot this way and still get it done.

“It’s really cool to see the evolution of the offense, the evolution of the mind of the head coach, and really the team also just believing it and buying into it and executing at a super high level.”

The best head coaches evolve — Nick Saban was a tremendous example — and that’s why Heupel’s evolution should be extremely exciting for Vols fans.

There are always going to be some bumps in the road, but Heupel is showing that he’s far from a one-trick pony who needs tempo and wide splits to win games.