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Tennessee football: 10 historic coaching hires that resemble Josh Heupel

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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Former Auburn coach Pat Dye before the Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, November 30, 2019.Pre1242
Former Auburn coach Pat Dye before the Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, November 30, 2019.Pre1242 /

This isn’t the first time Tennessee football hired a head coach with championship experience at a smaller school. Butch Jones had a similar resume to Josh Heupel’s, including the fact that both followed coaches who had won championships at those smaller schools and just kept the success going to a certain degree.

The Auburn Tigers hired Bryan Harsin this past year, who did a similar thing with the Boise State Broncos following Chris Petersen. Chris Kliemen is still being tested after two years with the Kansas State Jayhawks, as his resume following Craig Bohl with the North Dakota State Bison got him the job.

Heupel’s resume is very similar, though, to many elite coaches in history. In this post, we’ll rank those coaches based on their own success at a school and how similar their resumes when they were hired. These are 10 historic coaching hires that were similar to Tennessee football’s hire of Heupel and worked out in a big way.

842. Scouting Report. 1981-1992. player. 10. Pick Analysis. Auburn Tigers. Pat Dye

Record at time of hire: 24-23-1; Record at Auburn: 153-62-5

Previous schools:

  • East Carolina Pirates: 1974-1979
  • Wyoming Cowboys: 1980

Similar to Josh Heupel, Pat Dye was coming off a mediocre season at a smaller school the year before he was hired. He had gone 6-5 and 4-4 in the WAC in his one season with the Wyoming Cowboys. Before that, he was with ECU for six years, but his final year wasn’t his best, as he had just gone 7-3-1 that season.

Dye’s other years at ECU included three years in Division I play, including an Independence Bowl win in 1978, and three previous years in the Southern Conference, where he won the conference title in 1976. We should note that also, like Heupel with Scott Frost, Dye inherited an ECU team on a roll, as it had won two straight conference titles under Sonny Randle.

Although he never had a losing season, this means he went 7-3-1 and 6-5 his final two years before Auburn hired him. It didn’t matter. In 12 years with the Tigers, he won four SEC Championships, developed a great rivalry with Tennessee football head coach Johnny Majors at the time, and built the most dominant team in the league int he 1980s.

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