It’s year six for Josh Heupel with Tennessee football. This makes him one of the most experienced coaches in the SEC, racking up a 45-20 (24-16 SEC) record so far in his career leading the Vols.
Ahead of fall camp, college football podcaster Josh Pate gave his thoughts on where that places Heupel in the grand scheme of the SEC. In his ranking of the top coaches in the conference, Heupel was slotted in the bottom half of the SEC at No. 9.
This put Heupel behind Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, LSU’s Lane Kiffin, Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz and Oklahoma’s Brent Venables.
Updated SEC Head Coach Rankings pic.twitter.com/n7hHeK4ccF
— Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) June 22, 2026
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A big reason Heupel is this low on Pate’s list was the quarterback position. Pate said it’s hard to grade last season because eight wins isn’t enough on paper, but dealing with Nico Iamaleava leaving in the spring and now having an inexperienced quarterback at the helm makes things tough.
“He’s six years in, they haven’t gone to Atlanta to play for the conference title. They’ve been to the playoffs once, they got blown out,” Pate said. “But also, Tennessee was in the gutter for a long time, and he pulled them out. So I’m not putting him top five, but I think if you’re talking six through 10, especially the No. 9 spot considering what Heupel has done there and considering the hand they were dealt last year, I think that’s fair.”
Looking at the coaches ahead of Heupel, he has yet to beat Smart and Kiffin, though his only game against Kiffin was in his first season at UT when Kiffin was at Ole Miss. The coaches he hasn’t faced off with are Sarkisian and Elko.
Heupel has split his meetings with DeBoer and Venables, beating both in 2024 and losing to both in 2025. He has winning records against Lea and Drinkwitz.
