Vols Poised to Make First Expanded CFB Playoff
Since the end of the 2008 season, Tennessee fans have been hoping for an athletic administration and football coach that could return the Volunteers as one of the top programs in the college football world. Look no further, Vols fans. Josh Heupel is that coach.
Phillip Fulmer brought years of success to Knoxville during his run as head coach from 1993-2008. He tallied an impressive record of 152 wins & 52 losses with six SEC East Division titles, two SEC Championships, and a BCS National Championship after completing a perfect 13-0 season in 1998. After cementing himself as a Tennessee all-time great, Fulmer was unable to maintain that success and was ousted in 2008 after a disappointing 5-7 season.
The administration looked to make a splash hire in 2009 with the arrival of Lane Kiffin, hoping to rival Alabama’s 2007 big-time hire of Nick Saban. After one 7-6 season, Kiffin bolted for “dream job” USC, and the rest is history for the Tennessee football program.
From 2010-2020, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt all tried (and failed) to restore Tennessee back to its national prominence. Their combined records were an abysmal 65-67 with only one coach amassing a winning record in Butch Jones (34-27) after five seasons as head coach. Through his first four regular seasons at Tennessee, Heupel has already surpassed Jones’s win total with a record of 37-14. Six of those 14 losses came in Heupel’s first 2021 season with the Vols.
Tennessee just wrapped up their 2024 regular season with a convincing win over Vanderbilt to finish 10-2 and headed to the first expanded CFB playoff. The Vols finished T-2 in the SEC after being picked to 7th by the media at SEC Media Days. They finished above Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, and Missouri who were all picked ahead of the Vols. Tennessee has finished above where the media picked them in 3 of Heupel’s first 4 seasons.
There is still a lot for Coach Heupel to accomplish. He has yet to win a SEC Championship and continues to chase the elusive CFB National Championship. However, with his 2024 team finishing 10-2, CJH becomes only the third coach in UT history with multiple 10-win regular seasons joining Phillip Fulmer and Gen. Robert Neyland.
Not only has Tennessee cemented their spot in the CFB playoff, but they did so while being led by a RS-FS in Nico Iamaleava who continues to grow into a top-CFB QB. This seems to be a recurring theme under Josh Heupel’s UT program: landing top players and developing talent. Nico was the top player in the country according to ON3’s Class of 2023 HS Rankings and was the highest-rated QB recruit ever to arrive in Knoxville. Dylan Sampson, UT’s junior RB, just finished his 2024 regular season campaign with 1,485 yards and 22 TDs, breaking Travis Stephens 2001 regular season rushing record of 1,464 yards.
To add to the success of the past several Josh Heupel seasons, Tennessee’s incoming Class of 2025 recruits is poised to finish in the top-10 nationally and Knoxville boasts one of the best NIL-collectives in all of CFB, The Volunteer Club.
And while a majority of this success can be credited to CJH, it would be a disservice to ignore Tennessee’s leadership that fostered an environment to allow this type of success. President Randy Boyd, Chancellor Donde Plowman, and Athletic Director Danny White (who brought Heupel with him to Knoxville from UCF) have made a concentrated effort to return Tennessee back to the top of the CFB landscape. An effort that had not been apparent in prior administrations (another blog for another day, maybe).
So my final message regarding Josh Heupel will be this: cherish him. He took a toxic program and restored it in relatively short order. The Vols have a chance to win every Saturday which is a truth that has not been apparent for about 12 years. With his continued success (and a little bit of luck), maybe the Tennessee Volunteers football program has a CFB National Championship in their future.