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Tennessee football: Five ways Josh Heupel hire resembles Butch Jones

By Caleb Calhoun

At left University of Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel shakes hands with University of Tennessee athletics director Danny White after being presented a jersey, during a press conference announcing his hiring in the Stokely Family Media Center in Neyland Stadium, in Knoxville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan.27, 2021.Heupel0127 0123
At left University of Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel shakes hands with University of Tennessee athletics director Danny White after being presented a jersey, during a press conference announcing his hiring in the Stokely Family Media Center in Neyland Stadium, in Knoxville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan.27, 2021.Heupel0127 0123 /
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TUSCALOOSA, AL – OCTOBER 26: Head coach Butch Jones of the Tennessee Volunteers against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Bryant-Denny Stadium on October 26, 2013 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
TUSCALOOSA, AL – OCTOBER 26: Head coach Butch Jones of the Tennessee Volunteers against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Bryant-Denny Stadium on October 26, 2013 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

One of the biggest fears out there about Tennessee football making its next coaching hire was trying to overreact against the previous coach. We wrote about that as a potential mistake before Danny White ever brought Josh Heupel to Rocky Top.

In the process of doing that, UT recycled Derek Dooley’s tenure with Jeremy Pruitt because Phillip Fulmer brought in the opposite of Butch Jones. Well, Heupel, in many ways, is the opposite of Pruitt, and that naturally means way too many connections to Jones, whose tenure ended in disastrous form back in 2017.

This doesn’t mean Heupel won’t work out as a head coach. In fact, many of these things could be mere coincidences. It’s hard to project which hires work out. However, the hire of Heupel looks more and more similar to that of Jones by the day. It’s getting eery. Here are five ways Tennessee football’s hire of Heupel resembles its hire of Jones.

5. Background in offense

Okay, there was a 50/50 chance this would happen, to be fair. However, given everything else we’re about to name, it is interesting that they would both have experience here. Josh Heupel and Butch Jones both spent years as assistants coaching on the offensive side of the ball and playing offense before they became head coaches.

Heupel was a quarterbacks coach and a tight ends coach at various schools. Jones had coached tight ends, wide receivers and running backs, so they both coached tight ends. Simply put, Tennessee football covered offensive backgrounds with these two hires.

Both were also offensive coordinators for coaches who eventually got fired, as Jones worked under Mike DeBord with the Central Michigan Chippewas from 2001 to 2003 and Heupel worked under Barry Odom and the Missouri Tigers in 2016 and 2017. Jones was also the offensive coordinator at Ferris State, and Heupel had that role at Utah State.

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