Joey Halzle explains what he's taken from Josh Heupel, others as Tennessee's play-caller

Tennessee offensive coordinator Josh Halzle has been around Josh Heupel for most of his career at the college football level. First, he was a player for Halzle and then an assistant.

He knows the Huepel offense very well, and has even seen others such as Alex Golash and Jeff Lebby run the offense as well.

“The fun thing about this offense, no matter who’s calling it is it’s extremely aggressive,” Halzle said on an episode recently of Vol Club Confidential. “You dictate the pace of the play. You dictate how the defense is going to play against you. That’s why we get so many unscouted looks because defenses are just throwing stuff at a wall trying to hope something sticks against us. It’s fun to be able to dictate that pace of play and that style of play that people don’t get to say, this is how it’s gonna go today. It’s like, no, no, we’re going to tell you how this goes today and you’re going to react to it.”

Halzle played quarterback at Oklahoma for Heupel, who himself was a star quarterback in the Sooners system at the turn of the century. Halzle has then spent most of his time as a college coach with Heupel, whether it be as a graduate assistant with Oklahoma, an analyst at Missouri and UCF or as the quarterbacks coach at UCF or Tennessee.

Halzle will get his first chance to be an offensive coordinator in Heupel’s system this upcoming season as he takes over for Golash, who left for the head coaching job at USF.

The expectations will be high after Golash led the team to the No. 1 offense in America, even as the team lost key playmakers like Jalin Hyatt and starting quarterback Hendon Hooker. Veteran Joe Milton is expected to take over at quarterback, and the team has faith that he can keep the ship rolling.

“For me, I love getting the ball out on the perimeter quickly — like, I love it — to our playmakers,” Halzle said. “Finding the right guy to get the ball in their hand too and get it out to them quickly in a bunch of space. You’ve seen the splits we play in and how fast we play, we can get space. We can get the guy with the ball in his hands so let’s figure out creative ways to get it to the right guy in that space that we’re creating.