How Josh Heupel Built His Name in College Football
By Jackson Freeman
Following the Sooners’ 40-6 loss to the Clemson Tigers in the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl, the Oklahoma administration decided changes needed to be made in Norman.
That singular decision upended now-Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel’s original trajectory and set him on a path that would ultimately lead him to Rocky Top a little over half a decade later.
Heupel, then the tenured offensive coordinator for the Sooners, believed back in 2015 that he was being groomed to be next in line on the long, storied list of coaches at the University of Oklahoma.
The former Sooner national championship quarterback had been successful at his alma mater as a coach, taking Oklahoma to two consecutive national championship games while on staff and helping the team win five Big 12 championships in seven years.
He had proven himself to be someone who could lead the team into a new era.
His bosses didn’t agree.
On January 6th of 2015, just eight days after the dreadful Russell Athletic Bowl, Heupel was fired. He had to start anew, away from the university he had long called home. Heupel’s secret weapon throughout his career has always been his ability to run an offense, regardless of where he’s coaching; he’s a proven savant.
Following his messy breakup with Oklahoma, Heupel carved his own way, one that has only added to his impressive legacy.
From the Ground Up
Seventeen days after being fired from his alma mater in 2015, Heupel found a new home at Utah State as the assistant head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach. This was Heupel’s chance to rebuild himself and his skills outside of the familiarity of his own school.
“He had to kind of start from the ground up,” David Ubben, a senior writer for The Athletic, said. “Going to Utah State and that experience and kind of learning in a new place and out on his own for the first time was formative.”
In his first season away from Oklahoma, Heupel’s offense finished 64th nationally in total offense, up 18 spots from Utah State’s ranking the year before. His success put him on the radar again, and this time, Missouri came calling. Just as quickly as he arrived in Logan, UT to coach the Aggies, Heupel departed for Columbia to be the offensive coordinator for then-head coach Barry Odom.
He was not set up for success in his new job though. Heupel’s inherited offense ranked second to last in the country, but within a year, he had pulled this team out of the depths of struggle and up to 48th in total offense.
His secret weapon was his quarterback: Drew Lock.
The following season, Heupel and Lock would break records. Missouri finished with the 14th-overall offense, and Lock threw an SEC record 44 touchdown passes. He also set single-game school records for passing yards (521), and passing touchdowns (7).
Lock’s success came because he fit within Heupel’s Art Briles offense. He aligned with the wide-splits, hurry-up schemes, and together, quarterback and coach consistently spread out opposing defenses and created opportunities for the Tigers to score, game after game after game. Opportunities continued to arise for Heupel because of his winning ways.
By 2017, Heupel was on the move again, this time taking over the head coaching position at the University of Central Florida. The Knights were coming off an undefeated 12-0 regular season under former head coach Scott Frost, a dominant win over No.7 Auburn in the Peach Bowl and a claimed “National Championship”. Expectations were high.
Heupel didn’t waste any time though — he picked up right where Frost left off. UCF finished the 2018 regular season without a loss and was ranked the No.8 team in the country.
It’s only blemish on the season came in the Fiesta Bowl against No.11 LSU. The 2019 season played out much differently. The Knights finished 9-3 after struggling to find a quarterback to replace McKenzie Milton and an injured Darriel Mack Jr.. Heupel attempted to get his team back in the Top 10 in 2020 by developing then-sophomore Dillon Gabriel into a national star.
Gabriel lit up the statsheet in the shortened 2020 COVID season, but his individual efforts weren’t enough, and the Knights finished the year with a 6-4 record and a loss to BYU in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Heupel’s first three years in Orlando ended with a winning record but no playoff bid. His next coaching opportunity though would bring him back to the SEC where he would fulfill that expectation four years later.
Following His Leader
Heupel coached under athletic director Danny White during his short tenure at UCF, and when White was hired by Tennessee in 2021, Heupel followed.
The football team he inherited this time though was far from the undefeated Knights program he took over in 2018.
Tennessee had just severed ties with disgraced head coach Jeremy Pruitt, leaving behind NCAA investigations, a battered roster and an uncertain path forward. But Heupel remained undeterred, even amidst fan criticism of his hiring. Jon Reed, host of “Talk Sports,” the morning show of Fox Sports Radio’s Knoxville affiliate, FanRun Radio, said he initially viewed White’s decision to hire Heupel as “Uninspiring.”
“You’re gonna really bring in the coach that you knew at UCF?,” Reed said. “It almost felt like a cop out for Danny White like, ‘hey, you struck out on actually going out and getting somebody interested in Tennessee. So you’re just gonna offer the guy that you’re used to working with, who, of course, will take it because Tennessee’s a bigger brand than UCF.’ Alright, I guess.”
That anger, though, was ultimately replaced by the hype of what could be.
“The initial reaction is always extreme, and then when you come down from it, you can kind of start thinking more rationally,” Reed said. “You were going from a defensive coach in Jeremy Pruitt, who couldn’t play offense at all, to a guy that was going to play a really exciting, fun offense. So it was easy to buy into it from that perspective.”
The biggest challenge Heupel faced entering his inaugural season at Tennessee was his football roster. After the firing of Pruitt, an exodus of thirty-five players, including some major contributors, entered the transfer portal, leaving the Tennessee locker room relatively empty.
Heupel had a simple message for players thinking about entering the portal in his introductory press conference.
“To the current members of this football program, and this roster, we need to be a family. We need to act like a family… At the end of the day, a family is defined to me as when push comes to shove, that family stays together. Let’s stay a family.”
Darnell Wright and Alonte Taylor responded to that message and chose to say, keeping two crucial members of the roster in Knoxville. Heupel has only continued to add depth and talent to his team since then. In 2022, he brought home the country’s 17th-ranked recruiting class, and in ‘23, he signed the 11th-ranked class, including the highest-rated recruit in Tennessee football history, Nico Iamaleava.
In 2024 and ‘25, Heupel added the 13th and 11th-ranked classes in the country. The higher-ranked recruiting classes have translated on the field as well. After a 7-5 start in his inaugural season, Heupel’s Vols exploded onto the scene in 2022, beating No.3 Alabama at home and topping No. 7 Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl.
The Vols missed the four-team College Football Playoffs that year, but their resume showed they could compete with the top programs in the SEC. They also ended the year with the No. 1-ranked offense in the country, a testament to Heupel’s impact.
The Quarterback Challenge
But there was no time for Heupel to rest. The cornerstones of his 2022-2023 team, such as Jalin Hyatt, Cedric Tillman, Byron Young, and most importantly, Hendon Hooker were now off to the NFL.
Joe Milton — and his famous arm strength —became Heupel’s best option at quarterback, but the Milton era brought less success than Vol fans expected under Heupel’s leadership. Milton lacked any kind of touch on his passes, and overthrows were a part of his game. He and the Vols ended the year 37th nationally in offense, 36 spots down from their ranking a season ago.
Optimism was on the horizon though as Milton was expected to be replaced by five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who led the Vols to a Cheez-It Citrus Bowl win over Iowa and was expected to translate that success into a playoff run for Tennessee the following year, now that the four-team playoff had expanded to 12.
Heupel’s Vols burst out to a 4-0 start in 2024, including an emotional win over Heupel’s alma mater, but Heupel soon realized that, despite this early success, he needed to make an offensive pivot from relying on his quarterback to putting his faith in his running back. Dylan Sampson, Tennessee’s record-breaking running back, became Heupel’s go-to playmaker, rushing for 1,491 yards and 22 touchdowns.
He would promptly be named the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, and Heupel and the Vols would ride Sampson and the defense to the school’s first college football playoff appearance.
Either a Vol or Not
The first round playoff game against Ohio State went about as poorly as it could. Ohio State dominated the Vols to the tune of 42-17 —Heupel had no answers for the Buckeyes.
Ohio State ran through Heupel’s offense. Changes needed to be made.
The first big change came at quarterback. Tennessee’s prized recruit and 2024 starter Nico Iamaleava ended his tenure with the Vols in dramatic fashion after sitting out the Orange and White game and subsequently being dismissed by Heupel.
William Patterson, host of “The Playbook” for Fox Sports Knoxville, said the timing of the move left him “shocked.”
“Just days before the spring game and after a full offseason of winter and spring practices, now was the time?” Patterson said.
The ever-so passionate Vol fanbase was quick to turn on Iamaleava as well.
“In terms of the fanbase, I think it was equally as shocking, but mixed in with frustration,” Patterson said. “For a quarterback that went from the face of your program to public enemy number one, it was truly unlike anything we have seen in the sport.”
Heupel had to pivot fast. He had two decisions: ride with one of the guys on the roster, redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger or true freshman George MacIntyre, or try to lure another team’s quarterback away in the spring portal window.
Heupel ultimately decided to go with the latter, and, after a few failed attempts at getting a quarterback to transfer, his options looked limited until UCLA quarterback Joey Aguilar, the athlete Iamaleava was coming in to replace, entered the portal. Heupel quickly scooped up the veteran and brought him to Rocky Top. He once again had his quarterback, only four months before the start of the 2025 season.
The core of Heupel’s roster from the year before opted to stay in Knoxville, even after Iamaleava’s departure, helping UT retain as much of its depth as possible. On3’s Vols Insider Austin Price believes this was in large part due to the culture Heupel has built at Tennessee.
“Tennessee was able to hold on to most of the roster because of a good culture that is in place and a good group of kids that are really close on and off the field,” Price said. “They have a good group that really cares about one another.”
Making It Work
Aguilar proved to be a fit for Heupel’s offense. Through the first ten games of the 2025 season, the Vols were ranked second in the country in offense, much of which can be attributed to Aguilar’s deep accuracy. The Vols will miss the playoffs, but Heupel’s success in developing Aguilar showed the country that he can still manage an elite-level offense.
Looking into the future, Heupel is gearing up for the arrival of 247Sports’ No.2 and No.10 players in the country in the 2026 class. The team is also slated to bring in its first top ten (No.8) recruiting class under Heupel, something Ubben says is of the utmost importance.
“They’ve got to find a way to upgrade their talent,” he said. “If you’re gonna compete for titles, which is what people want to do in Tennessee, you’ve got to be in the top ten.”
The Vols will finish 2025 with their fifth-consecutive winning season under Heupel.
He built this program from the ground up and turned it into an annual threat for the college football playoff. Ten years after the breakup with Oklahoma, Heupel has accomplished a lot.
He’s built a name for himself at several different stops, and his body of work speaks for itself.
Heupel is an offensive savant.