RTI)
On Monday, Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel confirmed that he is not a candidate at Penn State and is focused on what’s happening with the Vols. After an 8-4 (4-4 SEC) season, there has been some frustration from portions of the fanbase, particularly after a disappointing blowout loss to Vanderbilt at home to round out the season, though.
Due to this, former Tennessee defensive lineman Kahlil McKenzie Jr. was asked for his honest assessment of Heupel. He played for Butch Jones before entering the NFL draft, where he played from 2018-22. Now, he has turned to a coaching career of his own.
McKenzie responded with a video of him giving his unfiltered thoughts. The overall theme? He’s a fan of what Heupel has built in Knoxville.
Watch his response below, or read the transcript underneath the video.
This deserves a video and I hope you all watch it I promise not to be too long . go Vols. https://t.co/nqe7AJ6cVK pic.twitter.com/fSuUMxSSdJ
— Kahlil McKenzie Jr. (@Kahlil_Mckenzie) November 30, 2025
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“Ya’ll wanted it, so here it is. My honest, and I’m being so serious, my honest opinion on Coach Heupel is I love him,” McKenzie said in his video posted on X. “We have gone from a laughing stock. And I’m talking about me personally, I was there when we lost every single SEC game. We’ve gone from a laughing stock to a team with sanctions to whatever, McDonald’s money in the bags, to a playoff team. And then, losing to – our only four losses are four teams in playoff contention. After losing our quarterback that we spent so much money on to get out of spring ball.
“I was there. I saw the vibes of the day he decided to leave. And we had to go out and find a quarterback and we found a guy who led us to this. Coach Heupel, I have no problem with. I think sometimes, the idea of a head coach, Coach Saban has warped it for everybody. Everybody thinks if I have a great head coach, that means championships. No that doesn’t. Ryan Day is a great head coach, they wanted him fired after he lost to Michigan last year. Then he won the natty. Everybody wanted him fired. Everybody. Then, they won a national championship.
“A head coach is a very, very – I don’t know if it was Sark or Lane, whichever one of them said it this year, fire them and get who? Who? Get what? What do ya’ll want? We are contending? This is a bad loss, an embarrassing loss. It can’t happen. I think that we have to have more consistency on both sides of the ball. What that looks like? I don’t know. Is that getting new coordinators? Is it getting better players to fit the system? Is it making sure that we’re putting the players out there that fit the system we’re trying to run? I don’t know. I don’t. I’m not there, I don’t know. But things have to change. Things have to change in that regard.
“But when we’re talking about Coach Heupel, Coach Heupel has done a phenomenal job getting Tennessee football, not back to relevancy, to a place where we are contenders and people expect us to win. People expect us to be a championship-caliber team. I think that gets lost. We live in this delusion. I was literally there when we went 4-8. There was no delusion that we were a championship-caliber team. This is a championship-caliber team. We didn’t play up to that level, but does that mean he needs to go? Absolutely not.
“He has done a phenomenal job of getting us to this level, continuing to keep us at this level. We just need to figure out what it is. What is holding us back? And it has to change. It can’t be a, ‘Oh, we’ll work through it.’ No. It has to change. It has to change. Whatever is that hold up, whatever is hanging or holding us back, it’s got to change. It’s got to be gone. It’s got to be cut and you got to trim that fat so we can be that team that makes it over the hump. That is my honest opinion. Go Vols. I love you all.”
