Tennessee football: Two coaches Danny White discovered given opposite grades as hires

Known for his hiring prowess with the Buffalo Bulls and the UCF Knights, UT athletic director Danny White’s first hire with Tennessee football produced a mixed reaction. White was obviously the one to hire Josh Heupel away from UCF after he hired Heupel to UCF three years ago.

However, Heupel is the only coach discovered by White to get a new coaching job this year. Lance Leipold, who White hired to coach Buffalo in 2015 after five Division III National Championships in eight years with the Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks, has now been hired to replace Les Miles as head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks.

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN is much higher on the Leipold hire than he was on the Heupel hire earlier this year. He gave Kansas’ hire of Leipold an A-, while he gave Tennessee football’s hire of Heupel a C. Here’s a bit of his explanation for each of them.

"Leipold’s success at Buffalo (37-33 overall, 24-10 since 2018) validates what he can do at a program with inherent challenges. Kansas is an even tougher job, and Leipold hasn’t been at a Power 5 program since 2003 at Nebraska. His staff construction and recruiting approach will be fascinating to watch. But Leipold brings a dynamic offense and, more importantly, understands player development about as well as any coach out there.…Heupel knows offense and quarterback play, which Tennessee needs, and went 28-8 at UCF. But the program has started to backslide, as the Knights went just 6-4 in 2020. As another Tennessee coaching candidate told me of Heupel, “Not as good a situation to walk into as UCF was.” That’s an understatement. Heupel will have to weather the NCAA storm as well as a Tennessee fan base that likely wouldn’t have been pleased with any realistic option in this search. Heupel’s working relationship with White is a plus here, but he will need incredibly thick skin to withstand the next few years at Tennessee."

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Given what Rittenberg wrote in both cases, it seems as if he thinks that if White were going to hire a guy he hired to one of his other places, he should have brought in Leipold. After all, he touted Leipold’s ability to handle a job in tough conditions, and he questioned Heupel’s ability to do just that. It’s no secret what he values.

There is some truth to that, and it’s also true that Vol fans were talking about Leipold on Twitter much more than they were talking about Heupel before the hire was made. Leipold has made three straight bowl games, won the MAC East two of the past three years and just had a top 25 finish, Buffalo’s first since joining FBS play in 1999.

Simply put, in many ways, what Leipold did at a place like Buffalo is far more impressive than what Heupel did at UCF. Even at 56 years old, Leipold would have likely been a highly touted hire had he come to Rocky Top.

At the same time, though, White has a great track record with hires and knows what’s best for specific programs. Not all of his hires were home runs at the start anyway, but they almost all have worked out.

Perhaps he knew what was best for Tennessee football, and that’s why he made the hire. It’s clear that the Vols are about to struggle this year and may be on probation. A fun offense is what will be needed then to lift the morale. On that front, White may have made the perfect hire.