Each offseason brings new rankings of college football’s best coaches. Most of those human based rankings have pegged Tennessee coach Josh Heupel between the 10th and 20th best coach in the country.
But ESPN Billy Connelly put his analytic based systems into affect and it’s extremely high on Tennessee’s Josh Heupel. The formula Connelly used mixes each coach’s average season compared to the baseline success of the program they coach with Connelly’s SP+ rankings.
Connelly attempts to weigh how easy or difficult it is to win at a school into his ranking system, rewarding coaches who have success at non traditional powers. And while Tennessee is a traditional SEC power, Connelly’s ranking system benefits Heupel because it compares to the success of a school over the last 20 years. The Vols had largely floundered for the 16 years prior to Heupel’s arrival in Knoxville.
So what were the end results? The metric ranked Heupel as the No. 2 coach with a minimum of four years of head coaching experience. Heupel ranks as the third best coach nationally when including coaches with less than four years of experience.
The only coaches ranked ahead of Heupel are Ohio State’s Ryan Day and SMU’s Rhett Lashlee, who just complete his third year as a division one head coach.
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Coming in directly behind Heupel in the rankings are Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Texas State’s GJ Kinne, Penn State’s James Franklin and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.
Heupel has been highly successful in his four seasons at Tennessee. In that time, the Vols have posted a 37-15 (20-12 SEC) record. Tennessee has twice won 10 games under Heupel, something the Vols had achieved just once in the 15 years prior to his arrival in Knoxville.
Take out Tennessee’s 7-6 record in Heupel’s first season as head coach, when the program was still rebuilding, Tennessee is 30-9 under Heupel.
The Vols’ fifth-year head coach has done it without recruiting at an elite level either. Tennessee has consistently signed top 15 classes nationally but has just one top 10 class and has yet to flirt with a top five class. While the lack of high-level recruiting success raises questions about Heupel’s ability to get Tennessee to a championship level, it also speaks to his ability to consistently get the most out of his teams.
Heupel has a tough task in his fifth season at Tennessee after losing starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava to the portal last offseason. Las Vegas sportsbooks have set Tennessee football’s regular season over/under win total at 8.5.
