Kirk Herbstreit made some odd comments about the Vols this week, and he’s going to be shocked by what he sees when Tennessee faces Texas
Kirk Herbstreit will be calling the Tennessee vs Texas game for ESPN on Saturday afternoon in Knoxville.
Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler will be on the call for ESPN on Saturday afternoon when the Tennessee Vols host the Texas Longhorns in a huge SEC showdown in Neyland Stadium.
And Herbstreit, specifically, may be surprised by what he sees from Tennessee’s offense.
The longtime ESPN announcer joined The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday and he offered some outdated analysis of Josh Heupel’s offense.
“Heupel, who is one of these — he comes from going all the way back to the Art Briles system,” said Herbstreit. “He has his own version of it, but he will spread you sideline to sideline with formations, making you declare your numbers as a defense.
“If you overcommit in the box because you’ve got to respect that run game with DeSean Bishop and the quarterback run game, now you’re one on one on the outside to get those numbers right. And now they come up with clever ways to create rubs and vertical shots. If you stay light in the box and you’re thinking, ‘Let’s not give up the big play,’ now you’ve got to deal with being short up front, and they’re just very balanced. And he has as good of a feel as anybody at going fast with the up-tempo and spreading you out and making you declare.”
Kirk Herbstreit’s comments about Tennessee’s offense are outdated
Herbstreit is a busy guy — it seems like he’s on TV or a podcast more often than he’s not — so he probably hasn’t had time to watch much of Tennessee’s film over the last year.
But what Herbstreit described on McAfee’s show is the offense that Heupel was running a couple of years ago.
That’s not who the Vols were in 2025 and it’s definitely not who they are in 2026.
Since the start of last season, Heupel has run a much more pro-style offense. There are a lot of condensed formations inside the numbers with multiple tight ends on the field.
Tennessee also isn’t using tempo nearly as much. The Vols are huddling at times this season and often not snapping the ball until there’s 15 seconds or less on the play clock.
You can see some examples from this season below (note the play clock).
Now, there are still some times when Tennessee will use the wide splits — they haven’t completely abandoned that formation — but it’s very unfair to offer analysis of the Vols’ offense that suggests they’re just trying to spread the field and use tempo. That’s just not the bulk of what Heupel does anymore — he’s evolved significantly (and even when they do use the wide splits, it’s not like they’re snapping the ball nearly as quick as they did in 2021 or 2022).
“Everybody knows Tennessee as the run-n-gun,” said former Vols Chris Brazzell earlier this year. “Which, they’re right — I’m not gonna sit here and lie. So in 2024, that was a lot of run-n-gun. But this year, if you really watch my film, I’m running damn near every route in the playbook. Every route I’ve ran here, I ran at Tennessee.
“There’s not a route I’ve ran here that I have not [already] ran. So Tennessee is definitely evolving the playbook. They’re getting more pro-style. So yeah, I haven’t really ran a route here that I haven’t run at Tennessee.”
Heupel actually did a 22 minute film review of some of Tennessee’s offense changes back in the spring.
Heupel also clapped back at some of the outdated criticism of his offense back in the spring.
“The guys that keep saying something about wide receivers, I’m not sure they watched any tape this offseason,” said Heupel. “… The league, defensively and scheme (wise), is dramatically different than when we first got here. And that’s just the game. It’s a never-ending evolution and cycle. And so [there were] some things that we needed to add to our arsenal to help us out offensively.”
“We always evolve,” added Heupel. “Every single year we truly do.”
Heupel’s had to set the record straight before when Herbstreit has said misleading things about Tennessee, maybe he’ll do it again this week.
