Tennessee Football: 3 Reasons Josh Heupel will succeed as head coach

After a two week coaching search, Tennessee football now has a new head coach and it’s reportedly going to be Josh Heupel of Central Florida.

That’s according to a report from Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, who reported that Heupel and Tennessee football were finalizing a deal to make him the volunteers next head coach.

It’s an interesting hire but it makes sense. Danny White, who was recently hired as the AD, came from Central Florida and hired Heupel there as head coach.

White explored other candidates. There were rumors that Tennessee football was after James Franklin to be its head coach, but really, why would he leave a good situation for a rebuild at Rocky Top, with NCAA sanctions on the horizon?

Right away, you get the sense that Tennessee fans were holding out hope for a bigger name, but the bottom line is that Franklin, Matt Campbell of Iowa State or another big-time head coach wasn’t coming to Tennessee.

It was either going to be an up-and-coming assistant like Tony Elliott or a Group of Five guy like Heupel and in Heupel, White may have landed the best of the bunch and here’s why.

Heupel is familiar with Power-5 football

Not only did Heupel lead Oklahoma to a national championship as a quarterback, he had a successful run there as co-offensive coordinator. Add that to his time as QB’s coach and he was in Norman for eight years, so he knows how to recruit at a high level, with the big boys.

Beyond that, he was the offensive coordinator at Utah State, where he found Jordan Love and was the only coach to offer him a scholarship. He was also Missouri’s offensive coordinator before taking over at UCF.

Lance Leipold is another guy I really liked, plus some others from the ranks of the Power-5, but none of those candidates had a resume like Heupel’s and a proven ability to work with quarterbacks, which leads me to my next point.