Tennessee tabs Josh Heupel as next head coach & what's next for UCF with David Ubben and Chris Vannini
Until Saturday: A show about college football
The Athletic
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2021
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sound the siren! There's a new head coach in Knoxville! It's, it's...Josh Heupel? Andy reacts to Rocky Top-bound Heupel and what lead to the former UCF head coach's hiring (:15). Andy then welcomes David Ubben, The Athletic's Tennessee Volunteers chronicler, to analyze the Vols' newest coach (4:00). Was Heupel Tennessee's realistic first choice (6:30)? Will Knoxville's newest resident win in the SEC (8:15)? Andy and David list coordinators that could fill Heupel's staff, including a name from a intraconference school (15:00). The Athletic's Group of Five wordsmith Chris Vannini chats with Andy about Heupel's departure from UCF, a move that isn't particularly to fans' chagrin (22:45). The duo discuss the program's AD opening, and why it's so coveted (25:45). What's the potential profile of the Knights' next head coach (28:45), and what sitting coaches could be up for the gig?
Follow Andy on Twitter: @Andy_Staples
Follow David on Twitter: @davidubben
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisVannini
Join The Athletic for just $3.99 a month! Visit: theathletic.com/andystaples
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Andy Staples show. |
| 0:11.7 | Big news on Wednesday, a new head coach at Tennessee. |
| 0:17.0 | But the same coach who used to work for the same AD, |
| 0:22.1 | now they're going to do it in Knoxville instead of Orlando. |
| 0:24.7 | So Danny White got the AD job at Tennessee last week. |
| 0:28.3 | He came from UCF. |
| 0:30.3 | And on Wednesday, he hired UCF coach Josh Heipel, |
| 0:34.1 | same guy he hired at UCF to replace Scott Frost. Josh Heiple onto Knoxville |
| 0:40.1 | and Danny White defending the hire saying that he was the first option and he was the only |
| 0:46.9 | one we offered the job to. We all know that's kind of a little bit of semantics. But I don't know. |
| 0:53.3 | I'm not going to rip the hire. I'm not going to overly praise the |
| 0:56.6 | hire because I really don't know how he's going to do. I think hiring football coach is a |
| 1:01.8 | crapshoot to start with, but Josh Heiple outperform my expectations for him at UCF. When they |
| 1:09.6 | hired him from Missouri, where he was the offensive coordinator, I didn't know what to expect. He was succeeding Scott Frost, who had just gone undefeated. He went 12 and 1 that first year, then went 10 and 3 in the second year, 6 and 4 this past year, but they had a ton of opt-out. So I am very curious to see how Josh Heipel does as he moves up a level into the SEC |
| 1:30.8 | and we'll play games with a roster that is not superior in most cases in league play. |
| 1:38.7 | You know, in UCF, you are the superior roster most of the time and most of the games you play. |
| 2:11.9 | That won't be the case at Tennessee when you're playing Alabama, when you're playing Florida, when you're playing Georgia, if you have to play LSU on the other side, if you have to play Auburn sometimes on the other side, it's going to be difficult. You've got Kentucky that is very well coached in your division. We'll see what South Carolina becomes under Shane Beamer, but it's a tough job, a big rebuild for Tennessee because of the way Jeremy Pruitt was fired, because of the guys that have gone in the transfer portal. |
| 2:15.0 | But Josh Heipel is the guy. |
| 2:16.2 | Was he the first choice? |
| 2:19.5 | I don't think he really was. I think there were probably some sitting power five coaches that they kick the tires on. But honestly, it's very hard to hire |
| 2:25.7 | one of those guys if you are Tennessee right now because you just had an investigation into |
| 2:31.6 | alleged NCAA rules violations. You found so many that you felt like you could |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.