Penny Thoughts – To the Stone Ages with UT

by Benjamin Ogden

Back on Jan. 27, Tennessee hired Josh Heupel to replace the dishonorably discharged Jeremy Pruitt, who was discovered to be using McDonald’s bags full of cash to woo recruits to Knoxville (which might be the funniest story in recent college football history). This hire came as a both a bit of a shock and also not a shock at all.

There were huge question marks about who Tennessee was going to hire because, let’s face it, in the situation Tennessee is in now, Coach Klein from The Waterboy would’ve stayed with the SCLSU Mud Dogs if offered.

So, at seven in the morning, when Heupel was announced as the new head coach, I raised my eyebrows a bit and then shrugged; I really shouldn’t be surprised. This is the best they could do.

But sometimes the best you can do doesn’t cut it. This hire is not amazing by any stretch of the word, and the only reason Heupel was hired was because you need a coach to play football.

Heupel is a mid-tier college football coach. After a playing career which saw him lob 50 touchdowns in two seasons as well as a national championship and a trip to New York as a Heisman finalist, Heupel joined the coaching ranks, where he worked his way up from a graduate assistant for his alma mater to a promising young co-offensive coordinator for the Sooners. However, after (what Oklahoma considers) a catastrophic 8-5 season concluding with a 40-6 loss to Clemson, Oklahoma fired Heupel, who would go on to coach a Utah State team that never reached their offensive potential and two Missouri teams that only scored big numbers against small opponents.

However, UCF, who lost Scott Frost to Nebraska, hired Heupel as the replacement coach who would lead the Knights to another (ha-ha) national championship.

And of course, with Scott Frost’s talent still there, the Knights finished the regular season 12-0, but lost to a depleted LSU squad in the Fiesta Bowl, 40-32, inadvertently creating a college football legend in one Joe Burrow.

But the hopes were still high for the Knights. They opened up the season ranked number seventeen, only to lose to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Tulsa, appearing in the final AP Poll only due to their newly minted brand recognition.

2020 was even more of a disaster for the Knights, as despite the number fourteen preseason ranking, UCF once again lost to Tulsa, dropped a heartbreaker to Memphis, couldn’t beat number seven Cincinnati, and then closed the season with an embarrassing 22-49 loss to BYU.

Despite inheriting a team that went from 0-12 to 13-0 in a matter of two seasons, Heupel brought them down to a 6-4 football team. The team regressed every year he was coach.

So, imagine. A coach on his second head coaching job, the first of which was almost a guaranteed lock for at least one ten-win season, is tasked with rebuilding a former powerhouse program that has since been sent to the NCAA gulag, with sanctions upon sanctions waiting for him in the near future that might just doom the program.

Remember the Tennessee that showed progress? The one that could’ve played the 2019 Alabama team to a one possession game without Jarrett Guarantano calling his own number in protest of his coach’s call?

That team is going to be gone, and in its place, is a team that might compete with Vanderbilt for the worst team in the SEC spot for the next coming years.

Tennessee thought they could get back into the limelight, compete for SEC and national titles, and perhaps once again become a powerhouse. But their hubris was their downfall.

To the stone ages with UT.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of The West Alabama Watchman.