Josh Heupel reveals offensive philosophy

Josh Heupel’s influence on Tennessee’s offense in his first year in charge was hard to miss, with the Volunteers adopting the breakneck tempo that Heupel has become known for. Speaking with ESPN’s Greg McElroy on the Always College Football podcast, Heupel explained a bit about the origins of his philosophy on offense.

Heupel first started picking up on the up-tempo ideas as an assistant on Oklahoma’s staff in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when he served as quarterbacks coach and then co-offensive coordinator. In particular, it was a 48-28 loss at the hands of Rich Rodriguez’s high-octane West Virginia team in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl influenced the Sooners and Heupel to pick up the pace.

“Some of the wide splits we started messing with when I was at Oklahoma,” Heupel said. “We played with a ton of tempo early in my tenure at Oklahoma. We had actually, dating back to that, we played West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl. They were no huddle at that time with Rich Rod and we incorporated that the following season and had great experience with it. Got away from it on the backend just because, philosophically, that’s the what the head coach wanted to do.”

Heupel’s tenure at Oklahoma ended after the 2014-15 season, and he moved on to be an offensive assistant at Utah State and then Missouri. At Missouri, Heupel said, he had to get away from some of the tempo because of personnel constraints.

“We played different at Missouri,” Heupel said, “and I say that meaning that our personnel was different there than it has been everywhere I’ve been since then.”

Heupel took over as the head coach at UCF in December 2017 and coached three seasons there prior to taking the Tennessee job. In his three seasons coaching the Knights, the rapid pace returned as UCF went 28-8 in that span.

Now a year into the job at Tennessee, the fast-paced offense has remained a staple for Heupel.

“You know, since Missouri and UCF, we’ve continued to build upon our tempo,” Heupel said. “Schematically you always change. You know this. It fluctuates from year-to-year. You start everything with your personnel — you’ve got two tight ends you want to play with, you’ve got three. You’ve got four wideouts you want to play. And then you put those kids in a position and you make sure that you’re putting your offensive line in position to be successful in the run game and in pass pro, too. And certainly it comes down to what your quarterback can highly function with and control the game with. So you subtly change, but the tempo’s a huge part of how we apply pressure to defenses.”