Tennessee football’s five coaches before Josh Heupel hired for offense

Previous role: Cincinnati Bearcats head coach

We go to another head coach Tennessee football hired mostly because of his success as a head coach. In fact, Butch Jones was more proven than any coach on here. He was on the heels of back to back Big East Championships with the Cincinnati Bearcats, and before that he had won two MAC Championships in three years with the Central Michigan Chippewas.

Four championships and five winning seasons in six years at two different schools stood out. However, there was a major concern, as he followed Brian Kelly at both stops, and it was possible that he was just coasting off programs Kelly built.

What stood out, though, was his offensive mind. After being rejected by Jon Gruden and Charlie Strong, Dave Hart looked for a coach who would update the program to a degree. Even though the defense was the main problem in 2012 and the offense was historically great that year, there was a genuine belief that the Vols needed new energy all the way around.

Part of that new energy meant switching to the more fashionable spread offense that by the early 2010s had taken the college football world by firestorm. Jones’ version of the spread, which could be called a smashmouth spread, was intriguing, as it had all the updates with the spread offense but still focused on the line of scrimmage.

That was enough for Hart to take a chance on him, and it seemed to be working out through three years, as he got better each year from 2013 to 2015. However, he matched 2015 in 2016, which was an underachievement, and collapsed in 2017, getting fired by John Currie. The offense became outdated as quickly as it became fashionable after Joshua Dobbs left the program.