Josh Heupel makes strong statement about his future at Tennessee while discussing his portal approach
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel plans to continue to use the NCAA transfer portal to supplement UT's roster, but he won't be changing his approach and using it to overhaul the roster. Heupel has been careful to only bring in players at obvious positions of need that are a perfect fit for the Vols' […]
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel plans to continue to use the NCAA transfer portal to supplement UT's roster, but he won't be changing his approach and using it to overhaul the roster.
Heupel has been careful to only bring in players at obvious positions of need that are a perfect fit for the Vols' culture. Otherwise, he prefers to build the program via the development of high school players that Tennessee signs.
Tennessee's third-year head coach discussed his approach to the portal on Wednesday night during Vol Calls.
Heupel also made it clear that he plans to be at UT for a "long time".
"My plan is to be here for a long time, continue to build it and win championships here," said Heupel. "And at the end of the day, you just can't do that strictly through the portal. You can win in a quick way, potentially. The chemistry inside of your locker room is another thing that you’ve got to deal with when you do that. You’ve got to give yourself a chance to win immediately. But you can't sacrifice the future of your program, either, when you're trying to build and sustain something."
"There will inevitably be some holes that we feel like we’ve got to patch, but it can't be the bulk of what we do," added Heupel.
I've thought that Tennessee could've been a little more aggressive in the portal over the last two years. But I think you have to respect the way Heupel is building this program. He's not looking for a quick fix — he's trying to build something sustainable. And the way he's building the culture is important for the longterm health of the program.
Because we're still in the early stages of the NIL/transfer portal era, we haven't really seen how building a program almost entirely out of transfer players will impact a culture. Maybe it's a deal where these programs will find instant success before the program implodes due to culture issues. We just don't know yet.
But as for Heupel and the Vols, if he's going to take this approach, then fans are going to have to be patient. There will be some ups-and-downs. But if Heupel can build Tennessee's program into one that's winning at least eight or nine games every year, which is something the program hasn't consistently done in nearly 20 years, then it will give Tennessee a chance to actually achieve some longterm success that potentially includes a championship at some point down the road.
Tennessee HC Josh Heupel gets real about a roster issue that hasn’t been highly discussed
Vols head coach Josh Heupel brought up a roster issue that Tennessee’s dealt with this season
