Tennessee and coach Josh Heupel have agreed to contract extension which features a elevate that may pay him $9 million yearly and preserve him in Knoxville by way of the 2028 season. Heupel is 18-8 in two seasons main the Volunteers, and led them to their first New 12 months’s Six/BCS Bowl since 1999 following the 2022 season. The Volunteers completed ranked No. 6 within the ultimate AP High 25 and was the No. 1 group within the nation within the first School Soccer Playoff Rankings of the 2022 marketing campaign.
“The outcomes over Josh’s first two seasons communicate for themselves,” athletics director Danny White stated. “He and his workers have energized each our soccer program and our fanbase with an aggressive model of soccer, a aggressive tradition that creates leaders and a relentless strategy to elevating the bar each single day. Regardless of a short interval of dormancy, Tennessee by no means surrendered its standing as a college football powerhouse. We simply wanted an revolutionary chief like Josh Heupel to reignite the spark. It has been enjoyable to crash the occasion, however as Josh stated after our Orange Bowl triumph, the most effective is but to come back.”
Tennessee completed with the highest scoring offense within the nation in 2022 (46.1) and the most effective complete offense within the nation (525.5) as he helped quarterback quarterback Hendon Hooker evolve into probably the greatest quarterback’s within the nation. Hooker threw for 3,135 yards, rushed for 430 yards and accounted for 32 complete touchdowns.
“I’m grateful to President [Randy] Boyd, Chancellor [Donde] Plowman, Danny White and of Vol Nation for his or her large assist,” Heupel stated. “Our workers takes nice delight in representing the Energy T, and it is one thing we by no means take without any consideration. We are going to proceed to work tirelessly to construct a championship program that each one of Vol Nation and all VFLs could be happy with.”
Heupel arrived to Tennessee from UCF the place he posted a 28-8 report with the Knights program from 2018-20.
Tennessee is lastly steady
The Tennessee teaching listing for the reason that Volunteers broke up with Phillip Fulmer in 2008 reads just like the punchline to a really unhappy joke. Lane Kiffin left after one 12 months, Derek Dooley’s most notable accomplishment was carrying orange pants on the sideline, Butch Jones did not even have sufficient bricks to construct a basis and Jeremy Pruitt left this system mired in an NCAA investigation.
Heupel reversed these fortunes and gave Vol Nation hope after simply two seasons. Not false hope like these different failed teaching experiments. Actual, demonstrable hope that included seven straight weeks within the high 10. He broke the 15-year shedding streak to Alabama, went on the highway to beat eventual SEC West champion LSU and saved Tennessee within the nationwide title race into mid-November.
Will Heupel have the ability to preserve the momentum moving into 2023? A berth within the CFP will probably be loads to ask. But when he can preserve the Vols within the SEC East title race and pose the best menace to Georgia within the SEC East, that will probably be greater than sufficient to show that he is definitely worth the hefty price ticket.
It is the suitable market worth
Talking of the $9 million price ticket, it does bounce off the web page a bit. Nevertheless, it’s applicable contemplating the SEC teaching market. It is nonetheless lower than what Alabama’s Nick Saban, Georgia’s Kirby Good, LSU’s Brian Kelly and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher make; and equal to the common wage Kiffin hauls in at Ole Miss and what Mark Stoops makes at Kentucky. The entire coaches talked about aside from Stoops have both gained at the least one nationwide championship or appeared in a New 12 months’s Six/BCS recreation.
The one coach who has made a New 12 months’s Six or BCS bowl recreation who makes lower than Heupel is Auburn’s Hugh Freeze — who simply obtained employed this season and had his share of points when he was at Ole Miss.
Prefer it or not, Heupel deserves this type of cash primarily based on the place he matches into the fashionable teaching spectrum.
He is already capitalizing on his success
One peek on the 2023 247Sports group recruiting rankings will present you the way a lot hype that Heupel has generated amongst highschool and switch prospects. The Vols are presently ranked No. 8 within the nation heading into conventional signing day subsequent week, and a kind of gamers is five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava — the third-ranked participant within the nation. That momentum will doubtless proceed.
Heupel is locked in at Tennessee by way of the length of all of those gamers’ school careers, and the success of his offense on the FBS degree will undoubtedly be a draw to star gamers at ability positions for years to come back.
