Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel doesn’t do a lot of politicking.

Heupel has grown more comfortable in his role as an SEC head coach — he’s one of the longest-tenured coaches in the league — but he’s never going to be the loudest voice in a room full of other SEC head coaches. It’s just not who he is as a person.

“I like Josh,” said Georgia head coach Kirby Smart on his radio show last fall. “I think he’s opened up some more over the years. The first couple of times I’ve been on the field with him, or been in meetings with him, he doesn’t say a whole lot. He keeps to himself. But I think he’s getting more comfortable in our league in speaking up in meetings.”

While other coaches are taking shots at Texas Tech or Ole Miss (looking at you, Steve Sarkisian), or threatening to break away from the NCAA (yep, Smart went there), Heupel is content to sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

Every now and then, though, Heupel will speak up when it’s an important topic. And that was the case this week at the SEC meetings in Destin.

Josh Heupel has a request for the College Football Playoff committee

A year ago, the SEC made the odd decision to move to a nine-game conference schedule without pushing for an expanded College Football Playoff (the nine-game conference schedule starts in 2026).

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants a 16-team playoff, while most head coaches want a 24-team playoff.

The coaches recognize that adding a ninth SEC game means half the league is going to have one more loss, which could hurt programs when the final playoff brackets are revealed.

While speaking with reporters this week in Destin, Heupel essentially asked the College Football Playoff committee to consider that the SEC is playing an extra conference game moving forward.

“I think everybody in that room, and I’m talking about the head coaches, hopes the committee looks at (the SEC) adding another game inside of the league,” said Heupel. “Half the league is going to have one more loss…. The strength from top to bottom inside of this league, and that [needs to be] a part of how they look at it. It’s not just the last number on your win-loss column.”

No one knows how the committee is going to view the ninth SEC game (but I’m sure we will all be debating how it should be viewed this fall). And they probably won’t consider the extra physical load that playing another conference game puts on players. It’s going to be tougher to go play LSU on November 21 after playing Kentucky the week before (instead of playing teams like Western Carolina or New Mexico State the week before). It’s a better product for TV, but it’s going to take a physical toll on college football programs that are already thin on depth (thanks to NIL/transfer portal).

Heupel knows there’s a chance that Tennessee will be 9-3 at the end of November with three SEC losses. And he hopes if that’s the situation for the Vols, the committee will look at the conference schedule Tennessee played and decide they deserve a spot in the playoff over a 10-2 Big Ten team that got to play conference games against Purdue and Rutgers.